


man sets stage on fire

by ElisAttack



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Death, Bodyguard&Client to Friends to Lovers, Canon Typical Horror, Canonical Suicide (Attempt), Deer Hunting: A Maine Pastime, Eddie Kaspbrak & Stanley Uris Live, Explicit Sexual Content, Fanart, Fix-It, M/M, Secret Relationship, The Inherent Eroticism of Loyalty, bodyguard eddie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:14:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 86,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25472944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElisAttack/pseuds/ElisAttack
Summary: Flip of a coin.  Frank and Elfrida live.  Sonia and Alvin do not.Turns out children don’t have to suffer at the hands of their parents in order to grow up with a laundry list of issues.  Space clown trauma works just fine.Or the one where Eddie and Bev live better childhoods, forget, grow up, then together start a successful protection company.  Six months before their lives change forever, Richie Tozier comes to New York with a secret.  And in dire need of a bodyguard.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Frank Kaspbrak/Elfrida Marsh
Comments: 80
Kudos: 159
Collections: Richie/Eddie Bigbang 2019





	1. Penobscot County, 1990

**Author's Note:**

> This fic started with me wondering how Sonia Kaspbrak and Alvin Marsh’s less shitty counterparts would have raised their kids, had they lived. Down the line, it somehow got mashed together with a bodyguard AU, and I have absolutely zero regrets.
> 
> This is one of the plottier things I’ve written which, if you’re a returning reader, says a lot. If you’re here because of my older fics, I’d urge you to take a chance on this one. It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever written, and I’m so very proud of it. Watching the movies is not necessary to understand this since we’re going to be diverging off from canon long before the movies start, but I would highly recommend them.
> 
> Cheers, and all the thanks to my beta, [Katranga](https://katranga.tumblr.com/), who is basically the entire reason this did not stick to the original word count of 40k. She whipped this fic into shape, suggested inspiring ideas, and helped me overcome writers’ block like it was nothing but a speed bump. You guys should definitely check out her [writing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katranga/pseuds/Katranga).
> 
> Also, if you’re into that sort of thing, I made a Spotify playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3waxd4EmA0WQhOATUofbZ0?si=87VH2TxBQ76ED92hm8_LOQ).
> 
> Finally, if you have any questions about warning/tags, or the fic in general, feel free to drop an ask in my [Tumblr](https://iamonlydancing.tumblr.com/) inbox. I don’t bite. Much.
> 
> With all that said, happy reading!

Frank's insurance policy paid out a tidy sum. Twenty grand for the life of a man who died too young.

Men Frank’s age aren’t normally so foresightful. Most would rather drink away their pocket change. Frank was different. He didn’t touch alcohol, a blessing that stemmed from an abusive childhood. He was never forthright when talking about his father, but Elfrida could recognize the signs.

After all, birds of a feather.

When she found the policy, she was surprised that it was only arranged a month before he died. And even more so, that it named her as a beneficiary. They’d been friends for years, but their relationship was new. The fact that Frank trusted her with this—enough to name her Eddie’s guardian—broke her heart all over again.

She squeezes her hands around the steering wheel. Swallowing down a sob, Elfrida glances in the rearview mirror.

Eddie sniffles in his sleep, head precariously balanced on Beverly’s shoulder. His suit is a little too big on him, and the frown creasing his brow is much too old for him. He didn’t cry during the funeral, not a single tear. He was surrounded by his friends, and they held him together. He only cried once they left, as they drove down the cemetery road, looking out the back window, hoping to catch one last glimpse of his friends.

Elfrida has many regrets, but right now she wishes that Beverly and Eddie did not need to feel this pain. Leaving is for their own good. They are children, and children grow up fast. They will forget and move on, while she mires in thoughts of what could have been.

She meets her own eyes in the mirror, and is unsurprised to find bitter tears trailing down her cheeks. She purses her lips and wants to scream. She wants to beat her chest. She wishes she could thrust a middle finger at fate, laughing at her from its omniscient throne. It isn’t fair, but then life has never treated her fairly.

The suspension groans as she drives over a pothole, and she curses silently to herself. The children don’t stir. Her hands itch for the tape player, but this is the first time she’s seen Eddie sleep somewhat peacefully since Frank passed.

Elfrida isn’t sure where she's going, all she knows is that she has to get them out of Derry. Her rusty, old station wagon can only hold so many boxes; she was forced to leave everything behind. Her only consolation is that Eddie is old enough that his memories of his father will stay with him for the rest of his life. It’s what Frank wanted for her, and for their children.

Derry’s a dying town that doesn’t know it’s in hospice care. Good riddance. It can choke and die for all she cares. She’s done her time, and now she’s simply done. It’s taken everything from her: her freedom, her youth, and now it’s gone ahead and taken Frank. She won’t let it have their children too.

A sign appears, half hidden by a stand of trees. Bleached bone white, it shines, the brightest thing in the county, even brighter than the moon. She manages to read a single word before she’s zooming past. That word—a name—is enough to confirm what she already knows. They’ve crossed county lines. It’s the first time she’s done so in years, trying to escape from one dead-end town, only to find another.

_ I’m free, _ she thinks.

She blinks, long and slow. It’s as though she has driven into an underground tunnel; long and endless, lights dragging on by until she has no sense of time and space. Her head is so foggy. Like a cloud, she could float off into the sky. Her jaw relaxes and her back straightens; at peace, for what feels like the first time in ages.

_ Free from what? _

Elfrida looks into the mirror to check on the children. Eddie’s brow is smooth and Beverly smiles in her sleep. Pleased, she meets her own startled gaze.

She’s never been this happy, this light, or radiant. And so, for the life of her, she doesn’t understand why she is crying.


	2. New York, 2015

Eddie Kaspbrak is not a man to be fucked with. The people who work for him understand this. The people who love him appreciate this. Strangers take one look at him and make  _ assumptions. _

His life is a constant barrage of, 'hey, that guy looks like he's easy pickings,’ or ‘I'm gonna cut that twink off in traffic.' Little do they suspect that Eddie will fight back. He has, on many occasions, thrown men a hundred pounds heavier than him on their asses. Hell, he even fought a New York carriage horse. It takes some guts to fight a carriage horse; they have nothing to live for, and a taste for human flesh.

That's the first story Bev tells when she gives new hires a tour of their facilities. ‘Did you know your other boss fought a horse?’

It tends to get raised brows across the board.

There’s a lot of ex-military in their company—all vetted to the moon and back. Eddie’s background checks have background checks. He demands references for the references. He’ll call up highschool teachers, former commanders, and bartenders at favoured watering holes. He’s thorough, and he isn’t an idiot.

He co-founded a company offering protection to politicians, stars, and those who can afford it. He isn’t military. He’s a pencil pusher, through and through. It wasn’t always that way, but Eddie’s nearly forty years old. These days he can’t kick a punching bag without popping a knee.

“Who won?”

Eddie glances up from his laptop. Most of the group has moved on, but not the youngest of the hires. Jason Banwatt. Curious little fuck. He leans in the doorway to the shoebox office Eddie shares with Bev. Banwatt competes in Kendo tournaments all over the world, but as it turns out, Kendo isn’t a ‘real’ job, so here he is.

During the interview Banwatt said he applied to Black Arrow because of their diversity mandates. He has dark unruly hair and a little rainbow pin on his lapel. If he wasn’t Eddie’s employee, he’d be exactly his type. But he is Eddie’s employee, and fifteen years younger to boot.

Eddie snorts. “The motherfucking horse won.”

Banwatt chuckles. “I can’t imagine the things you’ve seen.”

A thought springs to mind out of nowhere:  _ horses are nothing compared to clowns. _ An eerie prickle runs over his skin, and suddenly the window at his back is too exposed.

Eddie has issues a mile long, and a crippling need to control everything is just one of them. He wants to slam the door shut in Banwatt’s face and curl up under his desk. All of that runs concurrent with an overwhelming urge to find Bev and make sure she’s alright. He knows that she’s fine, but his brain is telling him otherwise.

Luckily, an email notification pops up to distract him. Wiping his sweaty palms on his pants, he clicks on it. It’s from a talent manager. Steve Covall. Eddie’s never heard of him. Apparently a minor celebrity is coming to New York to film a TV programme, and Covall wants a close protection officer chauffeuring them around the city.

“Seriously?” Eddie mutters, worsening his already bad mood. Black Arrow is not a taxi service, nor are they accepting new clients. A fact that should be obvious, considering it’s on their website.

They have more clients on retainer than they can handle, hence the recent hiring spree. The newbies have to be trained on company policy until it’s hammered into their jarhead skulls. It’s a two week training course Upstate, then a two month apprenticeship with an experienced officer. His employees call him a hardass, but it’s his job to create a safe working environment.

“Sorry?”

“I don’t have time for this!” Eddie exclaims. No one is stupid enough to hire close protection in the place of a chauffeur. It’s overkill. Either Covall knows there’s danger and he doesn’t want his client knowing about it—meaning Eddie’s people show up unprepared—or he’s overinflating the danger because he wants press attention.

Banwatt clears his throat.

Eddie grimaces, looking up, but Banwatt can’t seem to meet his eye.

“You’re busy, boss.” He throws a thumb over his shoulder, backing out of the doorway. “I should find Ms. Marsh.”

An explanation sits on the tip of Eddie’s tongue. Bev’s always saying he should be more personable with their employees. She forgets that he is, by nature,  _ not  _ personable.

Eddie doesn’t say anything, and Banwatt goes without another word, closing the door behind him, leaving Eddie alone in an office whose walls are slowly closing in.

Company headquarters is the top floor of a converted Manhattan brownstone. During the reno, a foot of space was lost to professional grade soundproofing. They had to compromise on space somewhere. Bev and Eddie share the desk. Most of the personal items—scattered over the surfaces unoccupied by documents—belong to her. Except for a Newton’s cradle, half hidden behind a picture of Frida and Bev at his graduation. It's far enough from the edge that anyone meeting with him won't be able to touch it.

Pulling back the first ball, Eddie lets it drop.

Click, click, click.

Click, click, cl—

He stops the balls from moving.

Managers think they can throw around words like B-lister, and have people falling at their feet. This Steve Covall expects Eddie’s people to bend over backwards for him.

Fuck that.

It's a good thing Black Arrow is established. He can reject applications without it biting him in the ass. Eddie's geared up to send a scathing reply when he notices a name midway down the application. His hands fall from the keyboard.

“ _ Oh _ ,” Eddie says.

The Newton's cradle's phantom clicking rings in his head.

He gets a text from Bev on his company BlackBerry and starts sweating like a teenager. Normally Bev texts or calls his personal cell. The BlackBerry is reserved for serious conversations. Stuff that requires a paper trail.

**Beverly Marsh** [3:02 PM]  
Why did you draw up a contract for Steve Covall?

A moment of pure panic follows.

Eddie gets up to spray the windowsill pothos with distilled water. Then he notices the saucer has some water in it, so he goes to the kitchen to empty it in the sink. He stares at the bits of soil he splashed on the spotless steel. Pulling on a pair of dish gloves, he scrubs the sink down, because this is a communal kitchen, and who knows what the hell is in dirty plant water. It’s not his turn, but while he’s there, he figures he might as well clean out the microwave.

Eddie returns to his desk a half-hour later to type out what he thinks is a reasonable reply.

**Edward Kaspbrak** [3:35 PM]  
He’s willing to pay our fees twice over

**Beverly Marsh** [3:36 PM]  
You turned down a billionaire a week ago

Eddie’s life flashes before his eyes. His only saving grace is that Bev doesn’t appear to have read the contract in its entirety. 

**Edward Kaspbrak** [3:42 PM]  
It’ll be a few months before the client arrives in NYC, by then we should have someone available

**Beverly Marsh** [3:43 PM]  
Okay

Eddie sighs in relief, but a muffled ping signals one more text. Except, it isn’t from the BlackBerry. He reaches under the desk for his briefcase, pulling out his personal phone. 

**Bev 🔥** [3:46 PM]  
You sure this has nothing to do with Richie Tozier?

So Bev did read the contract. Eddie grabs a tissue from the box, dabbing at his sweaty forehead. 

Bev knows of Richie Tozier in an abstract sense. She knows Richie Tozier of stand-up fame, whose girlfriend should definitely leave him. Richie Tozier, the worst of what heterosexuality has to offer. Richie Tozier, who expanded into movies and had supporting roles in some of the most exhausting, soul-sucking works of nihilist capitalism the world has seen. She knows that despite all of this, Eddie will watch everything he's in, no matter how terrible. 

**Me** [3:50 PM]  
I can’t believe you would suggest such a thing

**Me** [3:51 PM]  
I am a professional 

Eddie does not have a _crush_ on Richie Tozier. He is a grown-ass man, with a grown-ass car, and a grown-ass company he built from scratch with his best friend. Grown men don’t have _crushes_.

**Bev 🔥** [3:52 PM]  
You are. That’s why this is weird

**Bev 🔥** [3:53 PM]  
Be careful Eds

Eddie closes his eyes, slumping in his office chair. It’s not a crush. But it’s not nothing.

Nineteen years ago, Black Arrow was but a distant dream in the minds of its founders. Back then they had other, more pressing matters at hand. They were twenty year olds on the cusp of something; young, suffering from sporadic bursts of acne, and a youthful desire for adventure. For Bev, it was signing them up for grueling Krav Maga classes. For Eddie, it was men.

Bev worked herself to the bone for a security firm that didn’t deserve her. Long days and even longer nights, and she would return home to their apartment, dead tired and ready to collapse into bed. Eddie was in school, but Bev figured the system could never teach her anything she couldn’t teach herself. Right about then, she learned that a junior colleague earned five dollars more by the hour simply because he had a penis hanging between his legs. Hence the Krav Maga. Twenty year old Bev was working through some things.

Twenty year old Eddie was also working through some things. Between accepting his inevitable corporate future as a business major, and figuring out that veganism was never going to cut it on account of a crippling cashew allergy, Eddie had, for the first time in his life, jacked off to another man.

In Eddie's head, thoughts of men did not count. After all who hasn't had a gay thought, or two, or three? Alas, it was the physical evidence of the deed that made it real: tissues buried so far in the bin, they'd never again see the light of day, his damp hands smelling suspiciously of lemon antibacterial soap, and a guilty, guilty look upon his flushed face. Not to mention a paused VHS tape, static rippling across a pale mess of a man in swimming shorts.

That man was the entire reason he picked the movie from Blockbuster’s discount shelf. He wasn’t even a main character, just a nameless extra on the cover. Eddie couldn’t put into words what drew him in. If he’s being honest, he still can’t. He had four lines in the entire movie _ ,  _ each one worse than the last _ : _

_ ‘It’s motorboating city, population: me.’ _

_ ‘I’d like to navigate that harbour and dock my dinghy in that port. If y'know what I mean? Get a little tugboat action.’ _

_ ‘Check out the floaties on that one.” _

_ ‘There’s no suntan lotion, but we’ve got ranch dressing!’ _

Eddie threw up in his mouth a little at that last one. It was the kind of dialogue that could melt brains, and make him want to bathe in mouthwash. Still, he rewound it again and again. Just to watch dark hair and knobby knees grin like a nuclear explosion.

_ SuburBBQ _ was the film debut of one Richie Tozier—then credited as Dick Tozier. It was a low budget, low rate piece of shit that was never released on DVD. The director was best known for biting off a traffic cop’s ear in the late 2000s. When they searched his car, a severed human toe was found in the glove compartment, along with enough cocaine that the sentence for possession was lengthier than the sentence for the toe situation. One of the producers joined a cult. The screenwriter was stabbed to death by his wife, and certainly deserved it for his innumerable crimes against women and ranch dressing. The lead actor drowned while skinny dipping in the Hollywood reservoir. The only person involved in the production of  _ SuburBBQ _ who wasn’t swallowed whole by Tinseltown herself was Richie.

In 1996, Eddie did not know any of this. Dick Tozier was just a skinny guy with a voice like a kazoo and the prettiest smile Eddie had ever seen. He was well and truly fucked.

By the time Bev had come home, the tape was safely hidden in his bag, rewound and ready to be returned. When she collapsed on the couch next to him, Eddie nervously turned to her and croaked, “Bev, I think… I know… I’m bisexual.”

She smiled like the motherfucking sun and pulled him into a hug. Eddie loved her so much at that moment, and he never stopped.

Seven years later, and Bev’s boss still never gave her the raise she deserved. So she did what anyone with her experience—and balls—would do. She gave her two weeks notice, convinced Eddie to quit his shitty corporate job—which didn’t take much convincing—then stole each and every client from under her boss’ nose. Thus, Black Arrow was born.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The snow is starting to pick up by the time Eddie pulls up outside LaGuardia’s arrivals gate. An hour before—when he was stuck in traffic, ice floes making their way down the Harlem river—the sky was grey, but clear. This is the coldest December New York has seen in a decade. Luckily, the flight landed before the oncoming blizzard.

Eddie checks his wristwatch for the fourth time in the last ten minutes. At this point it’s become a nervous tic. He wasn’t able to schedule anyone else to take the contract. He made his bed, now it’s time to lie in it.

A figure stands by a row of baggage carts. He’s facing away from Eddie, head bent over a phone. Something makes Eddie pull over beside him. It could be his messy mop of hair, or his hideous piss-coloured Hawaiian shirt. Speaking of thin,  _ tropical _ shirts, it’s eleven below and dropping fast. What the fuck.

Eddie tucks the ends of his scarf into his peacoat, popping the collar to protect his ears from the wind. Grabbing a pair of leather gloves from the console, he climbs out of the car and immediately wants to climb back in again. He’s lived in New York for most of his life. If he’s feeling cold, this LA-based funnyman must be  _ suffering _ .

“What the fuck is wrong with you!” Eddie shouts over the wind, and holy shit, he did not mean to say that.

Richie Tozier whirls around. His eyes light up, and the first thing he says is, “Anthony Perkins, you’re alive?”

Eddie is too cold, and too mad, to even begin processing that. Frozen snot hangs from Richie’s nose, and Eddie wants nothing more than to bundle him up like a burrito.

“Get the fuck in the car!” Eddie yells, pointing to the Escalade.

“Geez, fine.” Richie huffs, bending to pick up his bag.

“Leave it,” Eddie orders, shoving him towards the car. “Fuck.” He stares down at the single duffle. How the hell is he supposed to survive for months out of one duffle? Cursing, Eddie loads it into the trunk.

At risk of losing his ears to frostbite, he climbs back into the car. Checking the rearview, his heart just about leaps out of his chest when he finds the backseat empty.

“If you’re here to kidnap me—” Eddie jumps a foot in the air. “I’d like you to know—before I start screaming—that my manager will not pay the ransom, even if it’s five bucks.”

Eddie's off his game; he didn't notice Richie in the passenger’s seat.

“What the fuck?” he mutters, staring at the four-eyed, balding bastard beside him.

“Anyone tell you that you swear too much for a chauffeur?” Richie tilts his head. “At least I hope you’re my chauffeur.” His glasses are fogged around the edges, but Eddie can still make out the colour of his eyes. A lump catches in his throat. Instead of trying to speak around his tongue which is suddenly drier than the Sahara, he turns on the heat.

“You’ve got a little.” Eddie draws circles around his own eyes.

Richie pulls off his glasses, cleaning them on the corner of his shirt. “Is that a yes on the kidnapping…?” He trails off, returning his glasses to his face with a goofy grin.

“Fuck y—” Eddie chokes on the last syllable.  _ Sonofabitch _ . No swearing in front of clients. He’s seen pap photos of Richie stumbling drunk out of clubs, and never thought anything of them, but the moment he meets him in person he turns into a blustering idiot? Nice work, Kaspbrak.

“Only if you ask real nice.” The defrosted snot hanging from Richie’s nose dangles pendulously low. He sucks it back in, but it’s a ticking time bomb.

Grimacing, Eddie brushes past him to open the glove box. He pulls out a pack of tissues, tossing them in Richie’s lap. “Clean yourself up.”

“Right-o, zombie Anthony Perkins.”

“It’s Eddie—Edward," he pauses, adds, "Fuckface.”

A parking officer in a yellow vest eyes his car from the other end of the gate. Before she can order him to scram, Eddie pulls away from the curb, checking over his shoulder for oncoming traffic. He glances at his passenger. Richie’s cheeks have gone tomato red from the cold, so Eddie cranks the heat to full.

While waiting in line to merge onto the GCP, Eddie plugs an address into the GPS. Directions to an Upper East Side apartment pops up. Eddie drove past the place before he came to the airport. It has a twenty-four hour doorman and a top-notch security system. No one will be able to hurt Richie while he’s living there.

“I guess the fact that you know where I’m staying means you haven’t kidnapped me?” Richie says.

Eddie scrunches up his face. “What’s this about me kidnapping you?” He says blankly.

Eddie doesn’t take his eyes off the road, so he doesn’t know if Richie’s joking when he says, “You’re taking me to a secondary location, and you haven’t confirmed that you’re my chauffeur? What else am I supposed to think?”

“Are you joking?” Eddie says in disbelief.

"I'm a joking man. It’s literally my job. Richie Tozier, funnyman by trade."

“And you got in my car anyway?” He rolls his eyes. “I suppose that’s to be expected for a dumbass who thinks he can survive a New York winter without a coat.”

A surprised laugh flies out of Richie’s mouth. “Why, Mr. Eddie Edward Fuckface, I do declare,” Richie says in a stupid attempt at a southern accent. Eddie coughs to cover up his laugh. “Cut me some slack. I flew in from Florida. It’s eighty in Miami, and more humid than the devil’s buttcrack.”

“Thanks for the visual,” Eddie says sarcastically. They drive over a particularly deep pothole, but the suspension takes the brunt of it.

"Speaking of visuals, I can’t believe you drive an Escalade,” Richie continues. “The only people who have cars like this are foreign government officials, and the mafia.” Richie bends over the dash to fiddle with the sound system, but Eddie bats his hand away. “Is your mafioso boss poorly endowed? Chauffeuring someone around in an Escalade screams of overcompensation of the tiny dick variety."

“I’m not a chauffeur. I’m a close protection officer.”

“A  _ clothes _ protection officer?”

“Bodyguard, numbnuts.”

Eddie looks at Richie out of the corner of his eye. His mouth has fallen open in an unattractive gape. “That’s surprising. I thought your job was more along the lines of unhinged person.” 

Eddie isn’t going to dignify that with an answer. He isn’t, he swears. He isn't...

“Fuck you, bro.” Damnit.

Richie laughs. “So this is a kidnap job? Your boss hired you to pick me up, tie a weight around my ankle and throw me in the Hudson? I’m trying to remember which studio exec I pissed off, but my brain’s coming up with all of them.”

Eddie snorts. “Let me clarify, since it doesn’t seem to have penetrated that thick skull of yours. I’m  _ your _ bodyguard. If I was going to kill you, I wouldn’t throw you in the Hudson, I’d take you out to Poughkeepsie, chop off your fingers, pull out your teeth, and dump your body in the wetlands.”

“Wow, Eddie, don’t sound like you’ve done this before.”

Eddie stays silent.

Richie clears his throat. “Is it just me or is it hot in here?” He tugs on his collar with a long finger. “Bow-chicka-wow-wow. I always knew my true crime kink would get me killed.”

Eddie hides his smile by checking his side mirror. 

They fall into an easy silence as they cross over the East River into Manhattan. Eddie could never stand the quiet with anyone but Bev. Yet with Richie… it’s weird, but he’s  _ comfortable _ , and that’s saying something. Generally Eddie doesn’t feel comfortable unless he’s in the shelter of his own home. He can’t do something simple, like order coffee, unless he puts on the mask of Edward Kaspbrak. His social skills leave much to be desired. But with Richie, it’s easy, and that’s  _ terrifying _ .

“So, bodyguard?” Richie asks. “I didn’t think I was that hot. In fact, I thought I was thot.”

If it weren’t for the fact that their receptionist is twenty-five, and has an unhealthy obsession with memes, Eddie wouldn't understand half the stuff coming out of Richie's mouth. As it is, Eddie can’t help the chuckle that leaves his lips. Richie looks over, pleased. They meet the others’ eyes for a moment, sharing a smile.

“Does this make me Whitney Houston?”

Eddie lets out a noise that could only be called a guffaw. “You wish.”

Richie rolls his eyes. “Steve’s a paranoid fuck.”

Eddie frowns, worried because he doesn’t sound surprised.

Richie clears his throat. “He, uh, he didn’t tell you why, did he?”

“No…" Eddie trails off. A coupe cuts in front of him, taking the exit at the last moment. "What the hell," he growls, leaning on his horn. “Eat shit and die!”

"Holy shit, you're feral," Richie says, holding onto the door as Eddie steps on the gas. "Nice to know."

"Why did he hire me?" Eddie demands.

Richie gapes at him soundlessly. Then his eyes go steely, his lips thin, and he mutters the worst thing he could possibly say in that moment, "None of your business."

"None of my business?" Eddie echoes, blankly.

"Yeah." Richie nods. "So, like, stay out of it."

Eddie's eyes narrow. "I suppose that risking my life to protect you from whatever danger you're in is also none of my business?"

“The only danger I’m in is from the countless women trying to get into my pants.”

“Right. Are these hypothetical women all blind?”

“Wow,” Richie’s brows fly up to his hairline. “Screw you, man. I’m the one paying you. Can’t I pay you to shut up?”

"No." Eddie's fingers go white-knuckle tight around the steering wheel. It’s just a job, no need to get mad, but there’s something about Richie that pushes all his buttons. "And you're not paying my fees, Mr. Covall is."

“Steve, you rat bastard.” Richie pointedly turns away to stare out the window. With four miles of bumper to bumper traffic left to go, they fall into a silence that isn't remotely as comfortable as it was before.

Pulling up to Richie’s building, he unbuckles his belt. “Here we are,” Eddie says, internally wincing at how chipper he sounds.

“Okay, thanks, whatever.” 

“Wait a sec,” Eddie says. He reaches behind his seat, and grabs a brand new company hoodie. Tearing open the plastic wrapper, the fleece soft beneath his fingers, he hands it to Richie.

Richie traces the Black Arrow logo on the chest, looking like he’s about to say something, but decides not to at the last moment. Good. Eddie isn’t prepared to talk about signifiers and shit. Let alone with a perfect stranger. He hasn’t been ready in years.

Richie tugs the hoodie over his ghastly Hawaiian shirt. Eddie studiously avoids looking at the way Richie’s undershirt rides up, before everything is covered by the hoodie.

Eddie pops the trunk, checking for oncoming traffic before he gets out. The moment his boots touch the fresh layer of snow, he nearly wipes out. He can’t imagine how Richie’s doing in his Converse. Practically gliding, Eddie skates his way over to the trunk.

Richie's nose is pink, hands tucked in the opposite sleeves of the hoodie like a makeshift muff. His eyes dig into Eddie’s skin like a brand.

Eddie grabs his measly piece of luggage. “I hope you have something warm in this.”

“You know what,” Richie grumbles, hands flailing as he untangles them from the hoodie sleeves. He wrests the bag out of Eddie’s grip none too gently, “Fuck you. And fuck the horse you fucked in on. Fuck!” Richie starts marching over to the building’s revolving door, slipping and sliding as he goes. The liveried doorman watches his progress, brows creeping up his forehead.

Eddie frowns. “Rich—” And his eyes go wide as saucers.

It happens in slow motion, like all terrible things.

Richie’s feet fly out from under him. His bag goes airborne, sailing through the air, duffle bursting open on the sidewalk as Richie lands on his back with a pained grunt.

Eddie trained for situations like this. He has every earnable Red Cross certificate. Understanding the difference between a heart attack versus a stroke makes all the difference in his line of business. A client is more likely to keel over from a drug overdose than a bullet. Sometimes his job means protecting a client from themselves. Eddie knows what to do when his client slips and falls, and he goes over it like a list in his head. Check for responsiveness. Look for signs of injury, signs of clinical shock. Begin CPR if the client isn’t breathing.

Instead of doing his job, he stares at the mess of Hawaiian shirts in shock. Pineapples wearing sunglasses, palm trees waving in tropical breezes. It’s like Richie shops exclusively at Miami's tourist traps. His brain screams at him to do something, anything, but Eddie’s frozen solid. Richie’s not moving.  _ He’s not fucking moving. _ And that sobering thought has him jumping to action.

He carefully shuffles over the icy concrete, a lawsuit bound to happen. Hell, Eddie might file it on Richie’s behalf. Richie lies spread eagle on his back, staring up at the tempestuous sky like he can see god in the storming clouds. Snow falls on his face, melting on his eyelashes.

_ Pretty, _ Eddie thinks. Not in the way that most people are conventionally pretty. Richie’s prettiness is familiar, like a favourite stuffed toy. Like the way that if someone loves the things in another person’s head, they start loving the stuff outside as well.

“Richie?” Eddie asks cautiously. Richie’s breathing is rough, but he’s clenching and unclenching his hands, so maybe it isn’t too bad?

“I think I broke my hip,” Richie wheezes.


	3. New York, 2015

“Think about it this way,” Richie says on the phone with Steve the manager, “if you kill me, who’s going to write your paychecks?" He bobs his head. "Yes, I’m aware you write your own paychecks because you have full control over all my assets and bank accounts.”

Eddie sends Richie a sharp, horrified look. Richie rolls his eyes, mouthing the words, ‘I’m joking.’

Somehow that doesn't assuage any of his many fears concerning Richie Tozier.

Eddie drives them back to the apartment. Hours before a frustrating trip to the hospital, he managed to peel most of Richie's clothes off the sidewalk with the doorman's help, shoving them back into the sopping wet duffle currently occupying the space behind Eddie's seat. He’s painfully aware that the one jacket Richie owns is barely fit for mild spring days.

"It’s just the table read, it’s not a big deal, I've met the cast." Richie sighs, scratching his head. "Ashford, seriously? The producer? Fuck him, he approved the script rewrite. Steve, I'm not joking. The guy is a hack, this project was good before he—yeah? Fuck you too."

Contrary to Richie's estimations, he didn't break his hip, nor did he concuss himself. He strained his groin. At the hospital, the doctor gave him a cortisone shot, then sent them on their merry way with a prescription for anti-inflammatories. Considering the amount of sexual innuendos falling out of Richie's drugged-up mouth, Eddie was surprised the doctor didn't 'forget' to tap the air out of the syringe. He must have weighed the cost benefits. An air embolism might shut him up, but is it worth the malpractice suit?

Richie has to rest his injury for the next few days, which means Eddie won't be needed to escort him to and from the table read. He's almost disappointed.

"Did you expect him to catch me?" Richie’s still on the phone, but he’s gone quieter, almost defensive. His eyes dart to Eddie, then away, waving at the windshield like Eddie should be paying attention to the road instead of him.

They’re talking about him, aren’t they? That’s just great. The last thing Eddie needs is a customer complaint marring his spotless record. Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things, considering he owns the damn company. The problem is that Bev will lord it over his head until he dies.

Instead of stopping in front of the building, Eddie enters through the garage. He's going to bring Richie to his door this time. Who knows if maintenance mopped the floor and forgot to set up a slippery when wet sign? The bastards didn’t even throw salt, they're capable of anything.

Richie drops his phone to his lap with a sigh. "Got cut off. Thank god for parking garages, amirite?"

“Is everything okay?” Eddie asks, backing into a tight spot between two pillars.

“They’ll conference me in. If Ashford starts pushing another rewrite, I can kick the modem off the desk.” Richie shrugs, mouth a thin line. Letting out a weary sigh, he attempts to unbuckle his seatbelt, wincing in what is definitely pain. Eddie climbs out in a hurry, pulling open the door for Richie. He quickly reaches over him to click the seatbelt open.

“Does that usually happen at table reads?” Eddie asks, striking up a conversation if only to distract Richie from the indignity of having to be half-carried out of the car. It’s not the first time he’s had to get this physical with a client, and usually it ends with him being yelled at. Toxic masculinity needs to die a quick, painful death.

His distraction seems to be helping. Richie accepts the aid, letting Eddie slip an arm around his waist.

“Rewrites? Not this late.” Richie watches him with a little frown, as Eddie reaches into the backseat for the duffle, slinging it over his shoulder. “Usually it’s bits and pieces, but they scrapped an entire character a few days ago. Fired the actress who was supposed to play my daughter.”

“Why?” Eddie asks, kicking the door shut. He drapes Richie’s arm over his shoulder, taking most of his weight. Richie’s chest heaves, forehead dotted with sweat. Eddie rubs a soothing thumb along his hip bone, then immediately stops. Professionalism, goddamnit. Eddie thinks back to one of Steve Covall’s emails. “Isn’t it a family sitcom?”

“Not anymore,” Richie grumbles sardonically.

Rather than touch upon what is clearly a sore subject, Eddie presses the button for the elevator.

The apartment is eggshell white, except for one accent wall painted a depressing blue. The furniture’s straight from the pages of a modernist catalogue; a real estate listing come alive. The couch is low, almost to the floor, and composed entirely of straight lines. It has to be the most uncomfortable thing in the world.

“Nice place,” Eddie lies. There’s nothing personal in the art, no knick-knacks scattered on the coffee table beside—oh god—a book on United States coinage. Eddie’s only known Richie an hour, but that book is the most un-Richie thing he’s ever seen.

The whole apartment is clean as a whistle, but barely looks lived in. The place he shares with Bev is the exact opposite. Eddie keeps it tidy, but every free surface is littered with picture frames and mementos of their lives together. Eddie hopes Richie’s home in Los Angeles is nothing like this.

“It’s a rental,” Richie says as Eddie deposits him on a stool at the breakfast bar. It’s all iron and leather, but at least there’s a cushion. “Jeez, it’s two already? There should be food in the fridge, if you’re feeling peckish...” Eddie eyes the wall of cabinets, no fridge in sight. “...and if you can find it.”

Taking a guess, Eddie pulls open the tallest cabinet, and comes face to face with a shelf of fresh produce.

“Who the hell puts potatoes in the fridge?” Eddie mutters. “What do you want to eat?” He asks over his shoulder. There’s a stack of entrees that don’t look half bad.

“Why? You cooking?” Richie’s eyebrows climb up his forehead. “A chef and a bodyguard? Wow, if only his ass wasn’t flatter than roadkill, he’d be a triple threat.”

“I don’t have a flat ass!” Eddie spits, barely stopping himself from hurling a potato at Richie’s head. Taking a deep breath, he loads his arms full of ingredients, dumping them on the counter. He points a finger between Richie’s eyes. “You've forfeited your vote in the matter. We’re having potato skins.”

“Awesome.” Eddie pauses in the middle of furiously unwrapping a block of English cheddar. He looks up slowly to find Richie grinning, resting his chin on his palm, pleased as punch. “I love potato skins.”

Eddie has the strangest feeling that he just got played like a two-bit fiddle.

Hours later, Eddie rides the elevator down to the garage, stomach full of potato skins, ears still ringing with Richie’s laughter. Glancing down at his wrists, he notices one of his cuffs is shorter than the other.

He took off his jacket before he started cooking, and his sleeves rolled down while he grated cheddar. He asked Richie to push them back up, but he didn’t do a good job. His shirt is wrinkled beyond belief, but that’s what the jacket is for anyways. He must not have put it back on properly.

Eddie faces the elevator mirror, tugging on his lapels so they sit right. He adjusts his tie for good measure, smoothing it down. His eyes drift further up and... at least there aren’t any chives caught in his teeth.

He’s grinning like a goddamn idiot.

He touches the dimples on his cheeks, pokes the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. The elevator dings behind him, but Eddie’s frozen in place.

“Fuck,” he says emphatically.

“If you’re buying me a Christmas gift, I hope you don’t plan on asking my opinion on it,” Bev says, making a beeline for a display of cashmere sweaters. She checks the tag on a lovely pink and yellow cardigan that isn’t her size. Making a considering expression, she ultimately returns it to the rack.

“I need a coat, and I need your opinion.” Eddie was also planning on picking out a gift for Bev, but he wasn’t going to tell her about it. He’s not an animal.

“But you bought that a few weeks ago?” She points to the peacoat draped over his forearm; the peacoat that she chose, and that happens to make Eddie look and feel like a million bucks. “I hope you’re not turning into me.”

“Perish the thought.” He walks past the sweater display, and surreptitiously checks the price of the cardigan, making a pained noise in his throat. Cashmere costs how much? Eddie only has himself to blame. He’s the one who suggested a high-end department store.

“You better watch out,” Bev warns in a roguish accent straight out of a spaghetti western, running her fingers along the rim of an imaginary cowboy hat.

Eddie snorts, tamping down on an urge to burst out laughing.

“Our coat closet ain’t big enough for the both of us, varmint.” She throws up a pair of finger guns. “My six shooters and I will fight you for every inch, and I will win!”

“Can I help you two?” A stern-looking woman says from behind the department counter.

“Uh.” Bev shoves her hands behind her back, hiding her finger guns like they’re real. She seems to realise how ridiculous the gesture is, because she’s just as quick to thrust her hands into her coat pocket.

“We’re fine, thanks!” Eddie calls out, and the woman purses her lips, shaking her head.

“You won’t get away with this,” Bev drawls under her breath, dragging him around the corner. “You dastardly outlaw, you.”

He grins, nudging her shoulder with his own. “The coat isn’t for me,” he assures.

“Then who are we shopping for today?” Bev asks with a saucy grin, gesturing at their current floor. “Hmm?” Then to the escalator up to the men’s department. “Or hmm?”

Eddie rolls his eyes, gently pushing past Bev to climb onto the escalator.

Bev pulls him over to the topcoats, but the thought of Richie wearing a topcoat makes him want to laugh. He gets the feeling that Richie’s everyday hair routine is: shower, towel dry, and that’s it. Topcoats do not look nice on people who don’t spend at least ten minutes styling their hair.

When Eddie communicates this simple fact to Bev, she coughs into her fist,  _ “Metrosexual.” _ Eddie hears it on account of the word having four too many syllables, and because Bev definitely wanted him to hear it.

“Bi, actually,” he corrects with a grin and a discreet middle finger.

Eddie ends up choosing a down bomber in a rusty orange. Bev suggested a black one instead, but considering Richie’s New York wardrobe is nothing but flashy patterns, he thinks the orange will suit him better. The fur trim is so soft he never wants to stop touching it.

After Eddie pays for the coat, Bev wanders off into the cosmetic department. She claims she’s looking at lipstick, but as he rides the escalator up to the jewelry department, Eddie spots her at the Kiehl’s counter, a bottle of his favourite toner in hand. Eddie smiles to himself.

He’s examining a simple arrow pendant, wondering if Bev will think it’s corny, when a curly-haired man comes to stand beside him.

The man slips on a pair of glasses, practically smashing his nose against the display, hemming and hawing over a pair of earrings. He looks up to the attendant, who’s busy rearranging another display case, then looks back down at the earrings forlornly. He presses his fingers to the case, as if he could reach on through and pluck them from the velvet.

Eddie takes pity on him. “Excuse me,” he calls out to the attendant. “Could you help us?”

She turns around with a wide, polite smile. “Of course, sir,” she says. “Is there something you’re looking for?”

Eddie taps the glass. “I’d like the arrow pendant in gold.” He throws a thumb in the man’s direction. “He’d like to see the earrings.”

The man looks at Eddie in surprise, a quiet smile at the corner of his mouth.

“These?” She asks, gesturing to a glittering pair of diamonds set in platinum. Eddie admires her gall, but he doubts a reasonable man would spend the equivalent of four months rent in Tribeca on one pair of earrings. 

“No,” he clears his throat. “The pink ruby ones, please. She’d like those.”

“Of course,” she says, but her smile doesn’t dim a single watt. This guy must really love the future owner of those earrings.

The attendant gift wraps Eddie’s purchase while he waits at the register. Credit card tapping on the counter, he wonders if Bev would be willing to split the cost of the cashmere cardigan. It would be perfect for Frida.

"Here you are, sir." She hands over the gift box. Eddie slips it into his coat pocket.

The man clears his throat; a pointed—yet polite—sound that's meant to  _ request _ someone's attention, not demand. Eddie turns to him.

“Thanks,” he says, “For your help, I mean.”

“I hope they’re for your wife,” Eddie gestures to the gold band on his ring finger. “And not your mistress.” Unfortunately that’s a situation he’s borne witness to a few times too many.

The attendant chuckles, covering it up with a cough. 

The man sputters. “They’re for my Patty. My Patty who is my Patricia. The life... my love of... wife.” He starts blinking rapidly.

“Gift wrap, sir?” the attendant asks after a moment.

“Gift wrap sounds lovely, thank you.”

Eddie rubs his hand over his chin so the man doesn’t catch him grinning.

He’s a man after Eddie’s own heart, with his cute button nose and soft dark hair. If he wasn’t disgustingly in love with his wife, Eddie would have tried flirting with him for the heck of it.

“You don’t do this very often, I take it?” Eddie asks, guessing at the reason for his nerves.

The man accepts a bag from the attendant, who returns to arranging the display.

“No, not at all. I like buying her things, it’s just...” He removes his glasses, fidgeting with them before he returns them to a case. “I don’t know, don’t you worry your wife won’t like your gifts?”

“I’m not married.” Eddie laughs. “Especially not to the person who’s getting this for Christmas.” He pats his pocket. “We live together, but we’re just partners.” He clarifies. “Business partners.”

“You live with your business partner?” The man asks, and yeah, Eddie knows their codependency is weird from an outsider’s perspective, but the only other option is living alone, and he’s not about that life. They tried that once, in their early thirties when they could finally afford it. Eddie lasted all of three months. By the end of it, he was sleeping in the office because the emptiness in his apartment was making him  _ forget. _ He's not built to be alone.

“Rent in Chelsea is… a lot,” he says in lieu of explaining his many issues to a complete stranger.

The man bobs his head, considering. “You could come to Atlanta,” he says, and Eddie  _ thinks _ he’s joking, but his expression is as close to dead serious as possible. “That’s where I’m from. I’m just in New York meeting a client.” He holds up the gift bag. “And apparently engaging in capitalism for the materialistic happiness of the love of my life.”

“I don’t think my partner would do well in Atlanta,” Eddie says, wry. Whenever the temperature goes over eighty, Bev melts into a pile of goo in a pantsuit. And piles of goo don’t run companies efficiently.

The man frowns, curious. “What do you do?”

Eddie grins. Reaching for his wallet, he pulls out a sleek, black business card. He hands it over. “Call me if you ever run into trouble. Of your own making, or of someone else’s. I don’t discriminate.”

The man’s eyes dart over the card, then back to his face. “Nice to meet you, Edward Kaspbrak.”

“Call me Eddie.”

“Eddie, then.” The man’s brows creep up his forehead as he flips the card over. “You own a protection business? You’re a bodyguard?” Eddie nods, and the man huffs in surprise. “That’s Patty’s favourite movie.”

“It isn’t anything like the movies,” Eddie says, “It’s more like scheduling on crack. We do a lot of planning, and searching of empty buildings. Not nearly enough dodging bullets.”

“Your life sounds so tedious,” he says dryly. “Here.” The man pulls out his wallet, and switches Eddie’s card for a light-coloured one. “This is what I do.”

Eddie takes it with a grin. “Stanley Uris.”

“Stan.”

“The man,” Eddie adds out of nowhere. Stan smiles, eyes crinkling in the corners. There’s something familiar about him, but Eddie can’t put his finger on it.

“If you’re ever in Atlanta, and in need of an accountant,” Stan says, tapping the back of the card, “I don’t handle personal accounts often, but what are the chances of you showing up during tax season? I’ll make an exception.”

“You’d be surprised,” Eddie says just as his cell pings with a text.

Apparently Bev is a mind reader, because she’s taken a picture of the cashmere cardigan, asking if he’d like to pool their money to buy it for Frida. He sends off a quick confirmation, then turns back to Stan.

“I have to go,” Eddie says apologetically. “But it was nice meeting you.”

Stan smiles. “Frankly, I hope I’m never in a situation where I’d need your services. No offence.”

Eddie shrugs, already walking away. “None taken.”


	4. New York, 2015

Eddie and Bev leave the department store with oodles of gifts between them, packed in tidy bags. Wind blows snowflakes off tall skyscrapers to swirl around their feet as they walk briskly to the subway station. It’s a short train ride back to the office, faster than a cab, especially in this traffic.

“I’m going to grab a coffee,” Bev says, pointing to the window of a crowded Starbucks. “Want anything?”

Eddie’s stomach grumbles. “A sandwich. You know what I like.” He takes Bev’s bags so they don’t get crushed in the crowd.

“No problem.” She stops for a moment, her hand on the door. “No peeking,” she warns, pointing to the bags.

Eddie crosses an x over his heart.

While he waits for Bev, he wanders a little ways down the street. Slowing down, he comes to a complete stop in front of a window displaying gorgeous silver watches. He inherited his watch from his father when he died. The original leather strap was replaced a decade ago, but the timepiece is the same one that touched his father’s skin; the plating almost entirely worn away. It holds sentimental value. Eddie will never wear another. That doesn’t stop him from looking.

Richie doesn’t wear a wristwatch. But if Eddie gave him one, he…

He what? He would wear it? He would be thankful for having received it?

The watches in that display must cost twenty times what he spent on Bev’s necklace. Eddie never once considered buying a gift so expensive for the last person he dated, and he was with her for over a year. That’s not even taking into account what it means to give a timepiece to someone.

To Eddie, a watch is love as a statement of fact.

“What the  _ fuck?” _ Eddie whispers, horrified at the thoughts running through his brain.

It’s easy to picture Richie’s expression as he opens a velvet lined case to a silver watch inside. He would laugh in Eddie’s face. There’s no doubt in his mind.  _ What a poor, sad sack of a man, _ he would think. If this is what worries Stan every time he buys something for his wife, Eddie pities him. It’s an aching pain so alike rejection. Richie isn’t Eddie’s wife. They’re  _ nothing _ to each other. What the hell is wrong with him?

He stumbles back from the window, and all the temptations that lay within, bumping into an old lady. She gives him a look that could chemically exfoliate a layer of skin off a man’s face. Eddie doesn’t spare the display—nor the lady—another glance, hurrying back to the Starbucks, muttering under his breath as he goes.

"Nope. No. Eddie, you need to be  _ stopped _ ." He chops a hand through the air like a guillotine. "You've gone too far. The motherfucking  _ coat _ was one thing. This—whatever the fuck  _ this _ is—needs to end. Fucking ridiculous—"

“Hey.” Someone wraps a hand around his wrist. Eddie yanks his arm out of their grip, heart hammering.

Bev looks at him with furrowed brows, worry in her eyes. “I got you a caprese sandwich,” she says, holding out a paper bag. Eddie takes it numbly. “Are you okay?” Eddie lets Bev maneuver him away from the flow of traffic. She slides a hand up his bicep, pulling him close. With a sigh, he drops his forehead to her shoulder. “Eds, what's wrong?” She asks, coffee warm fingers touching his neck, nervous. “It’s not mom, is it?”

“No, no, Frida’s fine.” He squeezes his eyes shut. He got himself into this situation, and now he needs out. Anything else is unfathomable. His brain is wired stupid for this one man, and he has no idea why. He should have realized he wouldn't be able to handle this. “Someone else needs to take the Covall contract,” he says, “I’m not feeling very impartial at the moment.”

After a long period of silence that has Eddie gnashing his teeth, Bev quietly asks, “Richie Tozier?”

“I’m sorry.” Eddie bites his lip.

“Hey, no, it’s okay,” she says, petting his head. “We’ll figure it out." She pulls him back to look into his eyes. "Nothing’s ever too big for the two of us, huh?”

“Yeah,” Eddie murmurs, pressing his cold nose to her neck. “Yeah.”

Three days later Banwatt knocks on the door of his office, an apologetic look on his face. He holds up the bag Eddie handed to him that morning, orange polyester peeking from the top. Meaning, Richie’s still out there, braving the winter in nothing but short sleeve shirts. Great. Just brilliant.

“He said he wouldn’t accept it unless you gave it to him personally.” Eddie opens his mouth, but Banwatt doesn’t stop there. “He also said some weird stuff…” He shrugs, trailing off in a way that spikes Eddie’s blood pressure.

Eddie drops his head to the desk with a dull thump, nearly knocking his lasagna dinner over the edge. This is the beginning of the end of his company, isn’t it? Fuck.

“Mr. K?” Banwatt asks.

“Leave the bag,” Eddie sighs. He brings up the scheduling application on his computer, switching some things around. “You’re riding with Gianna again tomorrow.”

“Was it something I did?” Banwatt asks, hanging the bag from the rack by the door. He takes another step into the room, but seems to think better of it, stopping where he is.

Eddie shakes his head. “You’re fine. You’re better than fine. Gianna says you’re one of the best she’s trained.” Eddie tries to smile reassuringly, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m sorry he was rude to you. In the future, if another client makes you uncomfortable, I hope you’ll still come to me with your concerns.”

“He called me a tall drink of cocoa,” Banwatt says abruptly. “He wasn’t being racist or homophobic, but I don’t think he understands boundaries?” he says, clearly confused.

_ That’s Richie,  _ is his first thought, which is a terrible excuse for bad behaviour.

“Jesus christ,” he breathes.

“We’re not dropping him, are we?” Banwatt looks stricken at the thought.

Eddie leans back in his chair, steepling his fingers to stop himself from tearing pieces from his chair’s armrests. There’s already enough divots in the foam as it is.

“You don’t think we should...?”

Somehow, Banwatt takes that as his cue to pull out the chair opposite Eddie’s desk. He sits down, bent forward like he’s ready to tell a particularly juicy tale.

“I’m supposed to drive him to and from the studio in Queens, but Gianna mentioned that clients like to take detours, run errands and the like. Mr. Tozier said he wanted McDonalds.” Eddie’s eyes widen. “Don’t worry. I followed protocol and took him through the drive-thru...”

“You did right,” Eddie says, urging him to continue.

Banwatt licks his lips, nervous. “He asked if I had any dietary restrictions. I figured he was making conversation, that’s it, I swear. I told him I was a vegetarian.” Banwatt takes a deep breath. “Mr. K, he bought us both milkshakes and fries. Then he took all his garbage with him when he left the car. He’s a nice guy. A strange one, but nice regardless.”

_ Yeah, that’s Richie. _

Eddie's chest aches with something that’s probably tomato-induced heartburn.

“This was supposed to be an escort job. Gianna doesn’t think I’m ready for anything more.”

“She told you that?”

“She said Mr. Tozier needs someone more experienced,” Banwatt says with a pointed look, well aware that no one but Eddie is available to take the contract.

He looks away, stabbing a fork into his cold lasagna. If Bev were here she would tell him to drop the contract and tie up all loose ends. Let Richie become someone else’s problem. But Bev isn’t here.

Tomorrow he'll give Richie the coat. Then he’ll figure out where to go from there.

With the coat in hand, Eddie steps out of the elevator the next morning. He immediately notices a bubble mailer leaning against Richie’s apartment door. Mail doesn’t usually make him wary, but this building has a mailroom. The residents have to go downstairs to collect their packages.

Eddie steps closer, a shark smelling blood in the water, and nudges the unmarked mailer with his foot. It’s light enough that it falls without a noise. There’s no distention, no wires, hell not even any obvious noises coming from it. But that doesn’t mean a thing. Bombs aren’t the only weapons people send in the mail.

Crouching to inspect it further, the door opens in front of him. Something hard meets his nose with a solid thwack.

“Holy shit!” Richie exclaims as Eddie falls on the coat, crushing it beneath his ass. Tears blur his vision, but he can make out the shape of Richie bending in front of him, hands outstretched. “What the hell are you doing peeking under my door like a creep?”

'I wasn’t peeking,' Eddie tries to say around the hand he has pressed to his nose, but it comes out more like, “Uh wahn’t peh’ng.”

“Fucking hell.” Richie grabs him by the wrists, peeling his hand away to inspect the damage. Eddie knows he’s fine, even if he winces in pain. A broken nose feels a million times worse than this. “I can’t believe you’re here, I didn’t think you’d come.” Richie hauls him to his feet. “You’re not bleeding.”

Eddie pinches his nose, blinking tears out of his eyes. It stings like a bitch. “Don’ soun’ so ‘appy bout eh.”

Richie makes a ridiculous hangdog expression that Eddie doesn’t care for, and throws a thumb over his shoulder. “I should grab you some ice out of the freezer, man.”

“Ri’hie…” Eddie drops his hand, trailing off. Richie looks everywhere but at him. He’s dressed, ready to go to work; shoes on, the outline of his phone in the pocket of his terrible excuse for a jacket.

He’s not supposed to leave the apartment without security.

Eddie’s about to inform him of this very fact when Richie lets out a short,  _ “Oh.” _

He’s staring at the mailer—still lying in the hallway. There’s something fearful in his expression, not unlike a cornered rabbit too scared to fight back.

“Richie?” Eddie says, worried.

At the sound of Eddie’s voice, Richie seems to snap out of it, eyebrows lifting past the rims of his glasses. “It’s just my weed.” He snatches the mailer from the floor, tucking it under his arm, like if he holds it close enough it’ll disappear into his body. “No worries.”

“Bullshit,” Eddie says.

Richie blinks, finally looking Eddie in the eyes. He says, “You’re starting to swell. I’ll get you some ice.” He limps down the hallway towards the kitchen, shoes and all. His strained groin must still be bothering him.

With a sigh, Eddie gathers the crushed coat from the corridor. Wiping his shoes off on the mat, Eddie flips the lock on the door, chasing after Richie.

“I’m the last person you should be lying to,” he calls out. “My job is to keep you safe, and I cannot do that if you’re not being straight with me.”

Eddie stops at the breakfast bar; a barrier between him and Richie. He doesn’t trust himself not to strangle him. Eddie deposits the coat on the other stool. He doesn't understand why Richie can’t tell him the truth. Why does he feel the need to lie to someone whose job is to remain objective? 

An ugly voice in his head says,  _ but you aren’t objective, are you? _

Eddie eyes the package on the counter as Richie pulls open the freezer drawer, grabbing a tray of ice. He snatches a kitchen towel from the oven door. Upending the entire tray of ice onto the towel, he bundles it up and ties a neat knot, then lobs it at Eddie.

Eddie catches the makeshift ice pack short of it hitting him in the face.

“I’m telling you, it’s just weed.”

Eddie says nothing. He holds the bundle to his nose. The stinging cold is a terrible relief.

“You want proof?” Richie whirls around. He opens a drawer, shuts it. Shoves his hand in a cookie jar on the counter, then snaps it closed. Kicks a cabinet so it pops open, sticks his head inside, but evidently doesn’t find what he’s looking for because he emerges, frowning like a disgruntled cat.

Eddie would smile if he wasn’t so mad. “Having trouble?”

Richie squeezes his eyes shut, nudging his glasses crooked as he rubs the bridge of his nose. “Where the fuck are the scissors in this goddamn kitchen?”

“Over your shoulder, genius.” Eddie points at a magnetic knife rack affixed to the backsplash, carrying a wide array of knives, and one pair of errant scissors.

Richie snatches them off the wall. Turning to the counter, he makes quick work of the mailer. Whirling back around, his hand emerges from within the mailer to reveal… a rolled joint.

“Happy?” Richie asks. Looking far too pleased for himself for someone holding a raggedy joint.

Eddie's eye twitches. “You realize this isn’t California, right? Here, cannabis possession isn’t an infraction on par with a parking ticket, it’s—fuck you, are you listening?” Eddie’s voice rises in pitch as Richie drops the joint back in the mailer. Opening a random cupboard, he tosses the entire package inside.

“Cannabis, what are you? Fifty?”

“Nearly!” Eddie takes a deep breath, trying to compose himself. “You could be arrested,” Eddie hisses.

“I am a white man. I’m not going to be arrested for baking a little pot into some double chocolate fudge brownies.”

“Seriously, edibles?” Eddie groans. Months ago one of his clients overindulged in a few too many THC gummies. She nearly drowned because she was too busy making out with a pool noodle she thought was a mermaid, instead of breathing.

"It's medical. For chronic pain."

"Chronic pain," Eddie repeats. The doctor prescribed painkillers for the groin injury, but Richie had asked the pharmacist to fill the prescription for the anti-inflammatories only. At the time, Eddie figured Richie had a moral or practical stance against opioids, and would pop a Tylenol if it ever got bad. He didn’t think Richie’s painkiller of choice would be cannabis, and he never mentioned anything about chronic pain.

It’s a stretch, but it might explain why Eddie was hired. As far as he knows, Richie Tozier has never publicly admitted to struggling with addiction. If Richie’s manager wanted Eddie to keep him from relapsing, he would have warned him in the first place.

_ "Yeah,"  _ Richie says, stretching out the word. "Because my bodyguard’s a chronic pain in my ass."

Yup, no addict here, just an asshole.

Richie wears a pleased smirk on his face, like he knows he’s the funniest bastard that’s ever lived. Eddie can't help the chuckle that falls from his lips. Suddenly he's clutching his sides, doubled over in laughter. He’s in so much pain, and his nose feels like it's about to explode, but he can’t stop. Richie's staring at him like he's lost his mind, and who's to say he hasn't? Sometimes he thinks he lost it years ago. That would be the cherry on top of the shit sundae wouldn't it?

“Wow, fuck you, goddamit,” Eddie says when he finally manages to stop laughing. “Seriously, fuck you.”

Grinning, Richie reaches across the breakfast bar and picks up the coat. “I like the colour.”

Eddie nods once, sharply. He checks his wristwatch, trying not to think about expensive silver watches. “I have to get you to Queens in thirty minutes.”

He turns, but whirls back around at the last second. Richie nearly bumps into him. Looking up, Eddie pokes a finger into the center of Richie's chest.

“No more buzzing your drug courier into the building. I'll get you what you need.”

Richie’s mouth falls open ever so slightly. He licks his lips, blinking like he has something caught in his eye. “I don’t think you know the difference between sativa and indica.”

Eddie thinks that over. “You will give me a detailed list. This applies to everything. You don’t leave this apartment on your own. You want something—within reason—I’ll get it for you. Like I did with the coat.”

Richie’s throat bobs. “I didn’t ask for a coat?”

Eddie’s brain yells at him to walk away from Richie and his questions, hell, run away. He stays in place, even as he sweats through his shirt. It feels like he’s swimming in it. He’s supposed to be better than this. He doesn’t have years of discipline hammered into his skull like his employees with military backgrounds. They have rage built into every fibre of their being, but they also know control. It’s like breathing to them. Eddie never received the same training, and he’s not arrogant to assume that two decades of martial arts is equivalent to time spent in an active conflict zone. He never risked life or limb at a gym. The guns he disarmed were never loaded.

Talking to Richie is not like staring down a gun, no matter how scary. He’s a client in danger, and Eddie needs to remember that. If he doesn’t, something will happen to him, and it will be Eddie’s fault.

He swallows down all his fear and anxiety, and puts on a mask of pure professionalism.

“You didn’t ask for it, but you needed it. My job is to keep my clients safe. No more, no less. Are we clear?”

Richie looks at him, a frown creasing his brow. “Crystal.”


	5. New York, 2015

Eddie knows something’s up when Richie opens the door with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. Not that he doesn’t always greet Eddie like he’s planning something devious. This particular grin goes beyond planning, far into the territory of execution.

According to the schedule, Richie has the day off, which is why Eddie was surprised to receive a text at eight in the morning. Eddie hoped to get some work done at the office, but Bev threatened to whack him with a dirty pan if he didn’t take the day off, so the text couldn’t have come at a better time.

Bev only wants the best for him, but Eddie wouldn't know what to do with an entire day off. He hasn’t taken a vacation in years. Likely he would have ended up working remotely, with Bev eventually finding out. She likes to guilt him into taking better care of himself. Like a hypocrite. She's been ‘quiting’ smoking for nearly twenty years, despite the fact that the celadon vase in the living room always has a fresh pack hidden inside. They’re both terrible at keeping secrets from each other.

“No,” Eddie says, getting ahead of himself.

Richie’s grin doesn’t waver. “I read your contract. It says you have to take me where I want to go.” He links his arm with Eddie’s, practically dragging him to the elevators, looking far too pleased with himself. “That includes corny tourist traps.”

“It does not say that,” Eddie says. When the elevator comes, he gives it a cursory look-around before allowing Richie to step inside. Eddie stares at the descending floor number in lieu of meeting Richie's eyes. “I can veto a location if I think you’ll be at risk.”

“If you think a trip to Madame Tussauds is going to end up like  _ Night at the Museum _ , I don’t know what that says about your mental state, buddy.” He pauses. “Hey, has anyone ever told you that you look like Ben Stiller? It’s the eyebrows, I think…”

Eddie’s eye twitches. He’s glad he took the contract back from Banwatt. He was right, Richie is a handful.

He exits the elevator first, holding the door for Richie. “I’m more worried you’ll try to take a selfie, only to be crushed to death when one of the figures inevitably falls on you.”

Richie stares at him, blinking owlishly, before a slow grin spreads on his lips. Eddie turns away, striding to the car, before he’s clocked over the head with the full force of it.

“Kinky,” Richie says, jogging to keep up with his brisk pace. “Then again, some people are into that sort of thing.”

Eddie parks the car in an overpriced garage a few blocks from Times Square. The attendant offered to park the car himself for a small add-on fee, but Eddie stared at him until he backed off.

They walk down the street, turning onto 42nd, past the Hard Rock Cafe. A bunch of street vendors have made the sidewalk home, taking advantage of the bustling crowd. Their stalls are makeshift carts, designed for speedy getaways in case the cops show up.

Eddie stops Richie with a hand around his bicep. “Do something for me?”

“Yeah?”

Eddie pulls him over to a vendor selling tourist garb. He picks out a plaid scarf and an ‘I love NY’ cap, handing them to Richie. “Wear this.” He looks to the vendor, who holds up two fingers, then makes a zero out of his index and thumb. Steep, but he’s isn’t about to argue in front of Richie. Eddie fishes a bill out of his pocket, handing it over.

“How do I look?” Richie asks, modeling the additions to his wardrobe. With his hair tucked into the cap, and the scarf hiding the line of his jaw, he’d be unrecognizable if it weren’t for his distinctive nose. The disguise will hold up to a glance, which is all that’s really needed. Richie isn’t  _ that  _ famous.

In a thick Metropolitan accent, the vendor says, “Like a proper tourist, Mr. Tozier, ain’t nobody gonna recognize you now.”

Eddie frowns, pulling Richie back into the crowd. Okay, so maybe he’s more recognizable than previously assumed, especially within the middle-aged New Yorker demographic. He steers Richie around a group of tourists with a hand on his shoulder. Has Eddie mentioned how much he hates Times Square? Because he really, really hates Times Square.

The line to the attraction stretches far out the door. There are too many tourists, too many children, too many people carrying backpacks filled with fuck knows what. All those factors combine to make Eddie nervous. He sticks close to Richie, closer than he would when they’re in private, until he’s plastered along his side.

“You really are a worry wart.” Richie looks down at him from behind his thick glasses. The scarf slides down, so Eddie readjusts it to hide Richie’s mouth, tucking in the ends securely. “Better?” Richie asks, muffled, his eyes dancing with amusement.

Too obvious, but Eddie doesn’t voice his concerns. He glares instead, tugging the cap lower on Richie’s head.

A tired employee scans the tickets on Richie’s phone without looking up, and then they’re inside.

It’s crowded and banal. A preteen girl drags her feet after her family, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else, and Eddie can’t help but relate. It’s too warm, which is weird because he thought the figures were made of wax. Richie must be dying in his coat, but he doesn’t take it off, just unzips it. The scarf stays wrapped around his face.

Eddie observes the situation, like an outsider looking in. He sticks close to Richie, practically smothering him. Richie doesn’t act like he’s not there. He makes conversation; mostly one-sided because Eddie’s too busy keeping an eye out.

Richie oohs and ahhs, commenting on replicas of people he’s met in real life. “Yikes, they made her eyes too far apart… also, why is she so white?” He isn’t kind with his criticism. “Look, Eddie, that’s the old fart who interviewed me when I just started out, and wow, they copied him down to his liver spots.”

Eddie is profoundly uncomfortable. Most of the replicas dip into the uncanny valley; dead-eyed and empty. He looks at them and sees nothing. Then, because his brain works in mysterious ways, he imagines them coming to life, staggering around like the hollowed-out creatures they are. He blames it on Richie bringing up  _ Night at the Museum _ .

“You okay?” Richie asks, nudging his shoulder, pulling him out of his thoughts.

“Fucking perfect,” he bites out, stoic and unmoved. That is, until Richie does such a good Jimmy Fallon impression, Eddie breaks, laughing.

“Man, I was hoping they’d show his teeth,” Richie says, examining a figure posed in front of the United States Constitution. Eddie glances at the nearby plaque, brows flying up his forehead.

“I don’t think they’re legally allowed to make George Washington that handsome,” Eddie says abruptly. The figure has a rugged jawline for fuck's sake.

“He does look an awful lot like Jon Hamm,” Richie says, solemnly. “Maybe they reused the mould?”

Eddie folds his arms over his chest, glaring at the figure’s sculpted bone structure and romantic eyes. “I don’t care whose mould they used, people who owned slaves are not allowed to  _ glow. _ He should have bags under his fucking eyes, he should be suffering under the weight of his bad choices. The man has to look like the crusty, old bitch he is.”

“Was.”

“Was,” Eddie corrects. 

A gasp sounds from behind him. He turns to see an older woman with her hands over a kid’s ears. She glares at Eddie, but the kid doesn’t seem too offended, busy as he is sucking on a lollipop.

Eddie rolls his eyes at her. “He has to learn America’s dark history sometime.”

The woman looks ready to bust a gasket when Richie swoops in, linking his arm with Eddie’s, pulling him out of the president’s gallery. “How about we get out of here before you throw hands with an old lady and blow my cover?” Richie suggests.

It’s only when they’re outside, crossing the street, that Eddie realizes, “What were you saying about Washington’s teeth?”

“They were made of wood,” Richie says gleefully. “I wish they included that detail. Cowards.”

Eddie shakes his head. “He didn’t have wooden teeth, that was a myth. They were ivory, or something...”

Richie scoffs. “Cause elephants were endemic to North Americ— _ ah! _ ” Richie yelps as he goes skidding across an icy subway grate. The only reason he doesn’t land on his back is because Eddie catches him.

“First of all, you can make ivory out of any kind of bone, including cattle,” Eddie says, sliding an arm around Richie’s waist, just in case. It snowed while they were inside, and it only just started melting. Richie’s still walking around in ratty Converse. “Secondly, do you think ships didn’t exist in the 1700s? How the hell do you think Washington got his slaves?”

Richie clears his throat. He looks at Eddie, then off into the distance, eyes narrowing. “I bet you fifty bucks I’m right.”

They end up at the NYPL Main Branch; a marble Beaux-Arts building in Midtown. Eddie’s driven past it many times, but he never thought to step inside. A damn shame, considering it’s one of the most beautiful libraries he’s ever seen. He’s lived in the city for years, but somehow he’s experienced more culture in an afternoon than he has since co-founding Black Arrow _. _ New York is full of structures like this, he just has to make time to go out and look.

Unsurprisingly, Eddie prefers the library to the wax museum. The few people he’s seen so far are librarians, or researchers with their heads buried so deep in their books they wouldn’t notice a ghost if it popped out of the table right in front of them.

This might actually be heaven. And to think, heaven was a short ten minute walk from the hell that is Times Square.

Richie had grabbed him by the hand, dragging him down the street, all the while exclaiming that he’d prove Eddie wrong. So far, he’s done nothing of the sort. The information desk pointed them to the Milstein Division on the first floor, but with no idea what to look for, they’ve been sitting on the floor between the stacks, books spread open across their laps.

“Seriously, we could just check the internet,” Eddie suggests, reasonably he might add.

“Don’t believe everything you read on the internet,” Richie whispers furiously, thumbing through a guidebook from the sixties. Nose buried in its pages, he reads aloud, “The nether side of New York.” Richie chuckles. “This is an instruction manual on where to find vice in the city.” He waggles his eyebrows. “They don’t make ‘em like this anymore.” He closes the book, returning it to the shelf.

Eddie snorts. “As if you don’t already know all the places to find vice.”

“Contrary to popular belief, I’m not completely depraved,” Richie says.

“Oh, only a little bit depraved, then?” Richie glances at him out of the corner of his eye, wearing a smile that could be classified as fond. Eddie runs a pinky along a metal shelf. It comes away clean. Somebody does a good job of dusting. “Why are we here?”

“You’re asking the wrong question, buddy. Are you talking in a cosmic sense? Or a physical one? Because I’m not sure either way. That’s not what libraries are for.” Richie taps the side of a manuscript box, examining the label. “Now, if you wanted to learn everything you could about historic American building materials, this is the place to be.”

“Damnit, asshole.” Eddie nudges his shoulder. “Be serious.”

He shrugs, tipping his head back to rest against the shelves. “It’s quiet, I like it.”

“I like it too,” Eddie admits. “It’s big and it’s empty. You live in New York long enough, and you start appreciating that quality in places.” 

Richie chuckles. He picks a book off the shelf, running his thumb over the hot pink cover before setting it back. “Few years ago we filmed a movie a block from here. After wrap-up, we had some time to kill so I wandered off to do some exploring.”

“Urban spelunking?”

“Not quite,” Richie says, wry. “Snapped some photos of pigeons, y’know, the regular touristy shit. Saw the library from across the street, and figured I might as well check out what secrets I could find.”

Eddie quirks a brow, an easy smile on his lips. “Secrets, really?”

“It started raining and there were no taxis.” He rolls his eyes. “This place is like Wikipedia, you start in one aisle with some old school comic books, and end up halfway across the library learning more facts than you ever wanted about rare orchids.”

“Do you do this often?” Eddie asks, even as a string pulls taut in the back of his head when he thinks _ , comic books? _

Richie tilts his head to the side. “Do what?”

“Be spontaneous.” He grins, adding, “Just wondering if I’m going to have to chase you around the city one of these days.”

Richie laughs, startled. He slaps Eddie’s knee with the back of his hand, his touch lingering. “Shut your mouth.”

“Can’t say I will.”

Eddie and Richie share a small, private smile. For one blissful moment, nothing exists but them.

Eddie groans, stretching his arms above his head, popping his back. “There comes a time when you have to admit that you're lost.” He doesn’t even know if they’re in the right wing of the library. “We should ask someone for help.”

Like an angel descending from heaven, a librarian rounds the corner with a short stack of books. She does a double-take when she sees them. Just a couple of middle-aged men acting like fools, nothing to see here.

“Afternoon, gentlemen, finding everything alright?” She slides the books onto the shelf. Her name tag happily proclaims her ‘Ofra!’ and her smile takes that exclamation mark to heart.

“No!” Richie and Eddie declare at the same time.

Ofra quirks a brow.

Eddie scrambles to his feet, dusting off his pants. “You  _ need  _ to help us find George Washington’s teeth. Fifty dollars is on the line.”

“I’m not even surprised.” Eddie pushes open the library’s heavy door, snow blowing on through. He holds it for Richie.

“Don’t know why we expected anything different,” Richie says, sticking his hands in his pockets. It’s noticeably colder than when they went inside. Eddie stops Richie with a hand on his arm, then adjusts the scarf so it covers his ears as well. “I guess we now know why the history books say he had wooden teeth. The truth would scare the children.”

Eddie shakes his head, folding his own collar up to protect his neck from the wind. “I don’t think it’s right to keep them from knowing the truth. It’s scary, but if you hide this away they’re just going to grow up thinking the founding fathers never did anything wrong, and that’s a dangerous mentality.”

“So you think we should tell kids that George Washington’s dentures were made of slaves’ teeth?”

“Yes,” Eddie says bluntly. “It’s the truth, and they deserve to know it.”

Richie gives him a look that might be patronizing, but in the low light, he can’t really tell. Speaking of low light, he needs to get Richie home soon. They’ve been out the entire day, and Eddie is painfully tired.

“Some secrets should stay buried,” Richie says.

“Lying never did anyone any favours.” Eddie retorts, leading them down the steps. He rests a hand on the small of Richie’s back, guiding him west on 40th, back to the parking garage.

“Who gets the fifty dollars?” Richie asks after some time, his shoulders hunched.

“Huh?”

“We bet wooden against ivory, and neither of us were right.” There’s a tightening in Richie’s voice that wasn’t there before.

“If you want to get technical, human teeth are ivory,” Eddie suggests.

Richie makes a face. “That doesn’t count.” He breaks away from Eddie. “Excuse me, sir,” he says to a man sitting on the sidewalk, his back to a building. He has a blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders and an empty coffee cup between his feet. If Eddie thought he was cold, this guy is doing much worse. It’s only going to get colder. At least the alcove he’s sitting in shelters him from the worst of the wind.

Richie crouches in front of the man, and Eddie’s muscles tense, but he does nothing but blink up at them in wary confusion. Richie stuffs a fifty dollar bill in the cup, and that confusion turns to surprise.

“Have a nice night,” Richie says with a sunny smile.

Eddie gets a terrible ache in his chest when Richie walks back to him, linking their arms together. It doesn’t subside as Eddie drives then back to the Upper East Side. He says goodbye to Richie at his door, and it only becomes worse.

When he gets home, a box of takeout waits for him in the fridge. Bev's fast asleep on the couch, Netflix asking if she's sure she wants to keep watching. It's only eight, but she's already zonked out. She must have worked her ass off today. He presses a kiss to her hair, then turns off the TV.

He heats up the takeout, then sits at the dining table, staring down at his steaming food until it’s no longer steaming. A soft huff comes from behind him, then the sound of springs groaning as Bev turns in her sleep. Eddie rubs his hands over his face and through his hair, taking a deep breath in, exhaling.

He digs into his cold dinner.


	6. New York, 2015

Eddie comes home late from another Richie coordinated outing with a smile on his face. Bev must smell blood in the water because she leaves whatever she was doing in the living room to meet him at the door.

“You’re back late,” she says coyly, leaning against the wall as she watches him take off his shoes. She’d already left for the day when he got the text from Richie mid-afternoon.

Eddie places his shoes on the mat. One of Bev’s Chelsea boots has fallen over, so he sets it right. Hanging his coat in the closet, he smooths down the lapels. Then, taking a deep breath, he finally turns to her.

“Mr. Tozier wanted to see some attractions in Midtown.”

“Attractions?” she asks, heading back to the living room. Eddie trails after her.

Bev has the sewing machine out, scraps scattered over her work table, pieces of plain weave kevlar and carbon pinned to a tailor’s form. Eddie wears her designs when she deems them good enough. Thankfully, the only time they’ve come in handy was when a drunk client—a half-decent magician when he’s not drunk—swiped him across the bicep with a balisong. The kevlar works against a knife, but it won’t stop a bullet. Bullet-proof fabric is too expensive to justify purchasing when ballistic vests do the exact same job, and are much cheaper. Even if—according to Bev—they ruin the slim cut of a suit.

“A few museums.” Eddie drops onto the couch, while Bev sits in her roller chair.

He doesn’t mention that Richie made him go to the Museum of Sex, then proceeded to blush like an idiot at every exhibit. He probably wanted to get a rise out of Eddie, and didn’t expect it to backfire so catastrophically. After thirty minutes of Eddie watching the exits instead of an extensive collection of S&M paraphernalia, Richie gave up, dragging him out the doors in favour of the much more sedate Rubin Museum. Eddie enjoyed the outing after that.

“Museums, really?” She asks, surprised, looking up from a piece of twill she’s pinning. “I figured he’d be the nightclub type.”

So did Eddie, if he’s being honest. At the start of the contract he thought he’d have his work cut out for him, but Richie’s been a dream client. Even if he does talk too much.

“Have you spoken with his manager?” Bev asks. “About why he hired us, I mean.”

“Covall? He’s as vague as ever.” Eddie sighs, curling on the couch. He should change, he’s wrinkling his suit, but at the moment he can’t be assed. Besides, he loves spending time with Bev. They never get to chat like they used to. “He told me to ask Ri—Mr. Tozier.”

“And did you?” Bev asks, so consumed by her work she doesn’t notice his slip.

“Yeah. It didn’t go so well.” An understatement, considering Richie stormed off, and nearly cracked his head open on some ice. “I don’t want to agitate him, he gets jumpy.”

“Good call,” she says, pressing the foot pedal on the machine as she runs the fabric through. “Keep leaning on Covall, he’ll crack when he realizes it’s in his best interests to give us the details.”

He offers a salute. “Yes, ma’am!”

She sends a wry look in his direction, snapping up the foot. Snipping the thread, she holds an oblong piece of fabric up to the light. He has no idea what it’s supposed to be, but he’s sure it makes sense to her.

Bev stands, chair rolling back as she goes to pin the fabric to the dummy. Ah, so it’s a sleeve.

“How’d it go with your mysterious gentleman?” She flounces over, dropping onto the other couch cushion. Feet tucked under her, she turns her body to face him. “Did he like the coat?”

Eddie shrugs, desperately not meeting her eye, just in case she can read all the lies he ever told in his silence.

“You should have bought him something more romantic than a coat.” She prods his shoulder with a sharp finger. 

Eddie hums, noncommittal.

“Like a tie,” Bev says, “Ties are always sexy.”

“Are they though?” Eddie asks, genuinely curious. He tries to picture Richie wearing a tie, and… can’t. He can imagine it knotted around his head just fine, like he’s a drunk businessman. But around his neck? He’s drawing a blank.

“Yeah.” She smirks, devious. “They’re especially useful for binding wrists to headboards.”

“Bev!” Eddie shrieks, clasping his hands over his ears, staring at her, horrified. “No!”

“You can also stuff a tie in someone's mouth if you’re feeling particularly adventurous.”

Eddie’s face burns. He realizes that the idea of doing that to Richie’s isn’t remotely objectionable. Sometimes when Richie talks a lot, Eddie gets the feeling that he makes jokes to distract from what he really feels. Eddie wishes he would use his words for more constructive means. Like explaining why the hell his manager hired Black Arrow to protect him.

A devilish spark lights in Bev’s eye, and Eddie knows he’s utterly screwed.

“He talks a lot, huh?”

“Fuck,” Eddie groans, burying his hot face in his hands.

“Yeah, he does.” She giggles knowingly.

“He talks a lot of shit.” The words come out muffled, but Bev hears them just fine. She wraps an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close.

“So, he’s exactly your type.” Her fingertips touch the crown of his head, and Eddie understands that no matter how much she teases him, she’ll never mean it in a cruel way. They’re family. Not by blood. Better. They’re family by choice.

“Piss off,” Eddie mumbles, heart swelling with emotion.

“I love you so very much, Eds.” She chuckles. “But you’re a hot fucking mess.”

Eddie sighs, closing his eyes. “I love you too. Dickhead.”

The weeks go by in the blink of an eye. With no major crises to be handled at the office, his days are spent driving Richie to work in the morning, managing a company in the hours between, then taking him home in the evenings. Richie always makes conversation during the drive. More often than not he talks about the shenanigans the cast and crew get up to.

Rarely does he mention the more negative aspects of his job, but when he does, it's always in the evening, and only after Eddie asks after his day. He never volunteers the information, like he's afraid he'll bore Eddie with the realities of his life. Jokes come so easy to him. Everything else, not so much.

The evening before Richie’s day off, he climbs into the Escalade’s passenger seat.

Before Eddie can start the car, Richie says, “I have a dinner reservation for the Palm Court at six.”

Eddie checks the time. Two hours away. That's cutting it slim considering he has to take Richie home first so he can change. The Palm Court has a dress code, and jeans and a sweaty pullover are not it. He hopes Richie has a suitable outfit back at the apartment. They definitely won't have time to go shopping.

Eddie pulls out of the lot. “I’d like to meet your date before I leave you two alone. Even then I’ll only be a few tables away. Feel free to pretend I'm not there. I hope you booked an extra reservation for me, or I’ll need to have a chat with the maître d’.”

He waits in line to merge onto the Queensboro Bridge, but at Richie’s silence, Eddie glances in his direction. Richie stares at him with a stupid look on his face.

“I don’t have a date,” he sputters, like even the thought is ludicrous. “I promised Ziggy I’d come to his thing tonight. I figured since you’d have to stay out late, I might as well feed you before the show. It’s just the two of us for dinner, I mean... I booked a table.” Richie pauses. “If you want to sit apart that’s fine too.”

Eddie’s hands tighten around the wheel. “Your friend’s name is Ziggy?”

“Yeah, kinda? He had it legally changed from Siegfried. Personality wise, he’s the kind of guy who would choose something zany as a stage name. He’s the actor playing my son, and I wouldn’t call us friends since he’s about twenty years younger than me? We’re more like colleagues who eat lunch together. He’s a cool kid,” Richie finishes with a smile.

“Huh,” Eddie says because he doesn’t know what else he can say.

“I can get you a separate table, if you’d prefer?” Richie says, unsure.

Technically, Eddie’s not supposed to dine with clients, especially not at a place where an appetizer costs thirty bucks. He can watch Richie just as well from the bar.

Eddie swallows the lump in his throat. “The table is fine.”

Ziggy is apparently starring in a pop-up comedy show in Chelsea, and Richie promised he’d make an appearance. The show is at nine, which leaves them quite a few hours to kill eating overpriced food—and in Richie’s case—drinking overpriced cocktails.

“I was wondering,” Richie starts, pinkie tracing circles around the rim of his white cosmopolitan, nudging the skewer of cranberries. “Why don't you carry a gun?”

Eddie pauses in the middle of cutting through his salmon. “There’s no point,” he says. “Especially in the city. It’s too easy to accidentally hit a bystander. If we were to leave the city—which is not covered under your contract, so don’t get any funny ideas—I have a pistol permit and a state license for concealed carry. Same reason I don’t wear a ballistic vest everyday. It’s bulky, impractical, and pretty much useless against automatic weapons.”

“But what if someone starts shooting at us?”

Eddie studies Richie’s microexpressions. He’s biting his lip and stirring his drink with the cranberry skewer. He’s nervous in a twitchy way, a sure sign that he’s hiding something. But what else is new? Eddie’s known for a long time that Richie and his manager have been keeping critical information from him.

“Well,” Eddie says carefully, setting down his knife. “In this hypothetical situation, if someone starts shooting at your dumb ass, my job is to get in the way.”

“You’d take a bullet for me?” Richie asks, and the look on his face is nothing short of horrified.

“It’s my j—”’

“Yes, I know it’s your job, but still. You’d die for me,” Richie says, voice high and full of an unplaceable emotion.

“I would die for worse people than you,” Eddie says. It is what it is. A plain and simple fact, like how the sky is blue, and how the ocean is wet. It’s taken a long time for him to reach a place where he’s comfortable with this facet of the job. But comfortable, he is. It helps that the money is damn good.

“That almost sounds like a compliment,” Richie points out.

“Because it is.” Eddie spears a piece of artichoke and pops it in his mouth. “Don't get a big head.”

_ “Jeez-us,” _ Richie says, stretching out the syllables. He runs a nervous hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to do with that. Least I can do is buy you dinner.”

“Your manager is paying my company very well.”

“So that’s where my dough’s going,” Richie jokes. “C’mon, don’t ruin my sugar daddy fantasies when they’ve only just materialized.”

Eddie cracks a smile. “I’ve eaten here before, fuckhead, you’re not special.”

“Wowza,” Richie says, leaning across the table, eyes huge behind his glasses. “This sugar daddy’s got a humiliation kink, who knew?” He winks, ostentatiously. “Give me the deets, did a beautiful starlette try her hand at wining and dining your tight ass?”

Eddie snorts. “My ex took me here to show off.” He doesn’t know why he’s opening up so much, but he feels comfortable with Richie. If there’s anyone who will truly appreciate this story, it’s him. “The bastard drove a Maserati to pick me up, but didn’t bother remembering my allergies when ordering for both of us. A salad no less, like I’m a fucking rabbit.”

“Cashews,” Richie states, remembering from when Eddie told their waiter.

Eddie nods. “I took one bite and my airway closed right up. It’s a good thing the busboy keeps an EpiPen in his cart, or I would be so dead.” He picks up his water glass, taking a sip to banish the phantom pain of his throat swelling. He still can’t believe he nearly died from something so stupid like an allergic reaction. “I didn’t even get to eat the crème brûlée. My ex refused to ride along in the ambulance because he didn’t want to wrinkle his good suit.” Eddie chuckles. “The EMT high-fived me when I broke up with him.”

“Him?” Richie asks, high-pitched.

“Yeah, Tad.”

“Tad?” he repeats. Richie’s arm jerks abruptly, and he spills a good amount of his drink onto the pristine tablecloth. “Fucking hell, I’m a klutz.”

Eddie grabs a napkin to sop up the worst of the spill. Thankfully it was a white cosmo, and not red wine.

“You’re fine,” Eddie says when Richie squirms in his seat like he wants to take off and never come back. Eddie touches the back of Richie’s hand for a second to calm him down. “And yeah, his name is Theodore, but he insisted I call him Tad. Should have been my first red flag. Why not Theo? Surely that makes more sense than  _ Tad.” _

Richie laughs nervously. He downs the rest of his cosmo in one gulp, staring at the near imperceptible stain on the tablecloth.

Eddie chews his lip bottom lip, his gut flipping at the look on Richie’s face. “Shit, I shouldn’t be narrating the gory details of my personal life.”

Richie shakes his head, meeting Eddie’s eyes for only a moment before looking away. “You should hear the stories Ziggy tells me. Kid is wilder than I was at his age, and I was off the rail—”

Something explodes next to Eddie’s ear. Instinctively, he leaps and grabs Richie by the collar, dragging him out of his chair to the floor. Eddie covers him with his body, wrapping his hand protectively behind his head.

Eddie listens for the sound of screams, shattering glass, anything, but there’s nothing. A hush has fallen over the restaurant.

Eddie turns his head, only to see a waiter standing over the table behind theirs, a bottle of overflowing champagne in hand. He’s staring at them. Eddie thinks everyone in the restaurant must be staring at them.

“Um,” Richie squeaks, still under him, blinking up at Eddie, dazed.

Eddie swears. He picks up Richie by the shoulders, sitting him back in his chair, before collapsing into his.

“Okay, wow,” Richie says, his hair mussed even more than usual, glasses barely hanging onto his face. Eddie’s just glad he didn't break them.

“I am so sorry,” Eddie starts, rubbing a hand over his red face. He can't believe he did that. A champagne cork sounds nothing like gunfire. 

Richie fixes his glasses, looking around him. An older couple a few tables away are openly staring at them.

“Hey, how about we get out of here?” Richie suggests.

_ “Please.” _

Richie signals the waiter, who seems all too eager to get them out the door.

“Fuck me. That was so unprofessional,” Eddie mutters, mortified.

"No worries. Seriously. Now it’s my turn to tell you it’s fine," Richie says, patting the back of his hand. There, there. "You would’ve been far ahead of the curve if there was an actual gunman."

Eddie groans in reply as their waiter comes over with a nervous smile, asking if they’re finding everything alright.

“Perfect. Could we get the cheque?” Richie grins sunnily, the expression of a man who is going to tip extremely well. The waiter smiles. “And maybe two of those crème brûlées to go?” Richie blinks. “Wait. Do they have cashews?”

The crème brûlées don’t have cashews, and Eddie and Richie sit in the Escalade, across the street from Central Park, digging in. When they finish—the empty ramekins tossed in a bag on the backseat floor—Eddie pulls the car out of the garage. The address Richie gives him is familiar. It’s only a block away from the apartment he shares with Bev. All in all, the drive down to Chelsea is pretty uneventful; a little traffic, then a little Richie fiddling with the radio until Eddie locks the controls.

The venue is typical of comedy clubs in New York; dirty, and with no leg room whatsoever. Eddie already has a terrible cramp in his thigh, he can only imagine how Richie’s suffering.

The show is insane, and Eddie’s not entirely sure he knows what’s happening half the time. There are flashing neon lights, a guy dressed up as a cow, and an entire-ass UFO that descends from the rafters via a pulley, creaking louder than a haunted house. Richie seems to enjoy it. The rest of the audience look like they’re flying high, and Eddie sits in his seat wondering if it’s the kind of high that makes people crazy. He doesn’t think he can protect Richie from fifty-ish people if they decide to stampede.

After curtain fall, Richie checks his phone as people start filing out of the venue. “Ziggy says he’ll be out in ten,” Richie says, looking up at Eddie, his face shaded in the dark. “You don’t mind waiting?”

“I don’t mind,” Eddie says. It’s not like he has anything better to do. He sends a quick text off to Bev, letting her know he’ll be late. She’s quick to respond. One of their long term clients brought her to the opera, afraid that his soon-to-be ex-wife plans on murdering him. Bev thinks he’s seen  _ Lulu _ one too many times. Regardless, she’ll be home later than him.

Richie curls up on his seat, face lit up as he scrolls through his phone. They fall into a comfortable silence. Eddie keeps an eye on the usher as she goes through the rows, cleaning up after people who should know how to wipe their own asses, but alas. She ignores them, music blasting through her earphones as she sweeps garbage from the aisles.

A gangly boy on the cusp of manhood, or maybe a man on the cusp of boyhood, ducks from the behind the curtains, jumping off the stage. “Yikes, sorry to keep you waiting!” He makes a beeline straight for Richie.

Eddie stands up, but Richie waves him off.

“Rich, my man!” Ziggy—he assumes—clasps Richie’s arm, pulling him into a weird handshake that involves a lot of back-clapping and hugging. Eddie keeps a watchful eye on the situation, feeling like a PTA mom chaperoning a school dance. Ziggy turns to him with a goofy grin. “Is this him? Is this the Kevin to your Whitney?”

“I didn’t think you were old enough to get that reference,” Eddie says, holding out his hand. “Edward Kaspbrak.”

Ziggy shakes his hand enthusiastically. He has butter soft palms, and Eddie honestly wants to know his secret. “He’s a spicy one, isn’t he, Rich? I can see why you like him,” Ziggy says.

Richie winks at him over Ziggy’s shoulder.

“Anyways, I brought you guys some space cookies, gluten and nut free,” Ziggy says, handing them both packages with a single cookie inside. Richie’s has a little green alien on it, and Eddie’s a UFO. “I snagged a few before the crew swiped them all, greedy pricks the lot of them.”

“Jesus, Ziggy, really? Space cookies?” Richie sighs. “Can I talk to you?” He shoots a glance at Eddie. “In private. Just for a sec, it’s about work.”

Richie pulls Ziggy to the side. They turn away from Eddie, facing the stage, heads bent together. Eddie can take a hint. He catches a name— _ Brona— _ but that’s all he hears before pointedly tuning them out.

He looks down at the cookie. That’s the cutest UFO he ever did see. Breaking it in half, he nibbles at the edges. It reminds him of the sugar cookies Frida makes with the lopsided set of cookie cutters she’s had for years.

He’s smiling by the time Richie and Ziggy have finished their super secret conversation. Ziggy pulls Richie in for a final hug. To Eddie’s surprise, Richie gives his cookie back.

“Not right now,” he says with an apologetic smile. “I’m not feeling it.”

Ziggy points at Eddie, specifically at the half-eaten cookie in his hands. “Your friend thinks now’s a good time as any, which, impressive, dude. I thought you would at least wait ‘til you’re off the clock.”

Richie stares at him with a look that’s about equal parts horrified and befuddled. All the blood floods from his face, and he rushes over to Eddie, grabbing him by the cheeks. “Spit it out, spit it out right now!”

Panicked, Eddie says, “I already swallowed it.”

With the devil in his eyes, Richie turns around and punches Ziggy in the arm. “What the fuck?”

Disgruntled, Ziggy rubs his bicep. “C’mon, how was I supposed to know he’d eat it right away?”

“What the fuck is happening right now?” Eddie asks blankly. He gets the feeling he already knows the answer.

“There’s hash in the cookie, dude.” Ziggy shakes his head, mouth downturned. “Good thing you only ate half, you absolute virgin.”

Richie groans, rubbing his hands over his face. “I love you, Ziggy, and you did a good job out there, but you better fuck off now, man, I can’t even look at you.”

Ziggy rolls his eyes. “Whatevs, see you Monday, papa bear. Enjoy your Sunday off.” He points at Eddie. “Make sure you keep the virgin hydrated.”

Somehow they end up in the venue’s shitty bathroom, one of the tube lights flickering like it might go out at any moment. Eddie sits on the counter watching Richie lock the door, then check that the stalls are empty.

Eddie gets the feeling that he just met Richie’s dealer, which makes no sense. If Ziggy works with Richie, why did he have to drop off the mailer full of weed at the apartment? Couldn’t he have given it to him at work? Unless of course security does random checks for narcotics. Except, they don’t. They really don’t. Eddie has gone over the studio’s security with a fine tooth comb. He knows the ins and outs. It’s the only reason he’s okay with leaving Richie there unsupervised. Drug-use is an accepted evil, weapons not so much. Which is why they have metal detectors, but no pat-downs.

Fuck, but Eddie is still stuck on the fact that he has ingested an unknown amount of cannabis and he isn’t sure what to do about it. The packaging is annoyingly vague. The ingredients list is a handwritten note that says, ‘it’s a secret, shh,’ which isn’t remotely helpful. The only solution he can think of is to stick his fingers down his throat, but that might be an overreaction.

“How are you feeling?” Richie asks, popping up out of nowhere.

Eddie blinks, and a bead of sweat trails down the back of his neck. With him sitting on the counter, they’re now the same height. Weird.

“I don’t know, should I be feeling something right now? I should be feeling something, right? Why aren’t I feeling anything?” His knees are kind of itchy, but he supposes that doesn’t count.

“It takes at least thirty minutes to kick in.”

“How long has it been?” Is it just him, or is it getting hotter in here? Eddie loosens the knot on his tie. He tries to undo the first button of his shirt but his fingers are not cooperating.

“About twenty?” Richie looks at him with what can only be worry.

Eddie fans his hot face. The room is starting to spin, or maybe that’s because he’s rocking back and forth. He’s not allowed to get high while working. It’s rule number seven in the employee handbook. How the fuck is he supposed to take care of Richie when he can’t even take care of himself? What if someone tries to hurt him, what is he supposed to do then? Flop in their general direction? He fucked up. Oh he fucked up so bad. 

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s not your fault,” Richie says. “I should have known Ziggy would try to drug up the first bodyguard he meets. The kid has fetish for rule breaking. I heard that he spiked the punch at Audra Phillips’ dry wedding. If anyone’s to blame it’s my stupid ass—”

“No,” Eddie says, shutting that down right then and there.  _ “No.” _

Richie bites his bottom lip. He presses his cold hands to Eddie’s flushed face, and holy shit, that feels like heaven. He closes his eyes, soaking it in. “Do you need to go to the hospital?”

“I don’t know, maybe?”

He thinks about Bev finding out that he got high on the job, accident or no, and immediately wants to lock himself in this bathroom and never come out. She won’t get mad, but he’ll never hear the end of it. She’ll be telling the story in the break room until the end of time. He already gets enough shit for the incident with the carriage horse.

“I think I’ll be fine, but I’ll let you know if that changes?”

“Please,” Richie says.

Eddie’s starting to feel a little loosey goosey around the edges. “I can’t drive you home like this,” Eddie says. “My apartment is two minutes away, we’ll walk there.”

“Um, I don’t know how not-high you would feel about breaking that boundary. How about we wait it out here? Whatever you’re feeling right now is probably just the placebo effect. Half a cookie isn’t that much, you shouldn’t be this high this fast.”

Eddie blinks at him bleary-eyed, and his tongue does a weird  _ thing. _ “Gazebo?”

Richie’s eyes widen. “Okay, not the placebo effect.” He pulls out his phone. “What’s your address?”

In hindsight, bringing Richie home with him might not have been the best of plans. Eddie only remembers that he lives with Bev when he cracks open the front door, and sees a pair of stilettos lying on the shoe rack.

“Oh fuck,” Richie whispers, evidently seeing the same thing he does. “Okay, this is fine. Probably? Don’t panic. If your girlfriend—or boyfriend, because boys can wear heels too, I don't judge… but anyway, if they freak, I’ll say it was my fault. Claim responsibility like the adult I am.”

Richie deposits him on the chair by the door. He kicks off his Converse, then crouches on one knee, untying Eddie’s laces, pulling off his shoes. His hair looks so soft. Eddie sinks his fingers into it, giggling when Richie yelps.

“Floppy moppy,” Eddie says in wonder, fingers now fisted in Richie’s hair. He tugs his head this way and that.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the manhandling, but maybe stop before you pull out my hair and void all my studio contracts?”

“Don’t have a girlfriend,” Eddie says, making sure Richie’s looking him in the eye. “No boyfriend.”

“Okay, fine, you’re unattached." Eddie lets go of Richie's hair. "Fuck, does that mean you still live with your mother?” Richie asks, and Eddie thinks long and hard. Bev sure looks like Frida, but she also isn’t Frida. And besides, Frida isn’t his mother. No, that feels wrong. Maybe Frida is a little bit his mother...

“Don’t think so,” Eddie says. Pauses, adds, "Fucknuts."

“Oookay, buddy,” Richie says, eyebrows flying up his forehead. He drags Eddie into the living room. Tugging Eddie’s coat off, then his own, he drops them in a pile on the couch. A small voice in the back of his brain thinks it would feel amazing to bury his face in Richie’s coat. “Nuh uh, the doctor recommends a cold shower, c’mon.”

“Who’s the doctor?” Eddie asks, looking around him with narrowed eyes, fully expecting some random guy with a stethoscope to melt out of the walls.

“I’m the doctor,” Richie says, “Dr. Tozier, at your service.”

Eddie squeezes his eyes shut. Why is that so familiar, yet so far away? It makes his teeth ache. He stumbles away from Richie, foot catching the edge of the rug. Eddie’s arms pinwheel as gravity takes over. He’s falling, falling, falling, until his hands meet solid wood. He lets out a sigh of relief.

“Shit—”

Evidently he puts too much weight on whatever piece of furniture caught him, because the world tilts, and he falls flat on his ass. Something heavy slides past his ear, and with a whoosh it goes crashing to the floor. Eddie stares in horror at the remains of the celadon vase, broken in three large shards, a cigarette pack sitting innocuously between the pieces.

“Oh fuck,” Richie says.

Unbidden, tears trail down his cheeks, and Eddie has no idea why. The vase was an overpriced replica he picked up from the Met gift shop years ago. It’s practically worthless. Still, the tears flow.

Richie hovers over him, fingertips touching his cheeks, swiping through the wetness. “Shitshitshit, Eddie…”

“It’s fine,” Eddie croaks, and it is fine, but his stupid emotions don’t seem to agree. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

“I don’t know if you realize this, but you’re higher than a goddamn kite right now. That might have something to do with it.” Richie grabs him by the forearms, hauling him to his feet. “Where’s your bathroom?”

Richie turns on the shower for him. The water’s warm when he runs his hand under it. Richie looks him over, bites his lip, then undoes the strap of Eddie’s watch for him, placing it on the counter.

Richie leaves with a promise to return with comfortable clothes.

The shower doesn’t do much in the way of sobering him up. No more than the eventual passing of time. But it does wonders for his sore muscles.

He gets into a spot of trouble when climbing out. Eddie's feet tangle in the shower curtain, and he tries to keep himself upright, but the walls are slick, and don’t make for good handholds. With a crash, he lands on the bathroom floor, the wet curtain wrapped around him like a toga, preserving at least some of his modesty—if none of his dignity.

Eddie groans, dropping his head to the bathmat when Richie rushes into the bathroom.

“You’d better shoot this dying horse,” Eddie says to Richie’s hairy ankles. “Put it out of its misery.”

“Oh hush.” Richie picks him up for the second, or third time tonight. Who’s keeping count, really?

He hands Eddie a bundle of clothes. Eddie clutches them to his chest with one hand, the other wrapped around the curtain, the only thing keeping him from exposing himself. He should be embarrassed about Richie digging through his underwear drawer, but all he feels is safe and warm.

Richie clears his throat, throwing a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll leave you to change.”

“I, uh, Richie?”

Richie pauses, his hand on the doorknob. He turns, eyes focusing on him for a bare moment before settling on a spot over his damp shoulder. “Yeah?”

Eddie blinks, and a drop of water falls from his lashes. “Thanks.”

Eddie wakes to Richie fast asleep in the armchair beside his bedroom window. The sun creeps across the morning sky, peeking through the blinds, a burning line of light a bare inch from Richie’s eye.

Eddie drops back down onto the bed, springs creaking. “I’m going to kill myself,” he declares to the ceiling. Rolling over, he buries his face in his pillow.

“Before you do that, could you make coffee?” Richie says, voice muffled like Eddie just woke him up.

Eddie groans. He finds his wristwatch on the bedside table, but looking at it makes his head hurt. Fuck Roman numerals. He scrubs the gunk out of his eyes. He hasn't been this hungover in years, and he wasn’t even drinking. Whatever, it's nearing eleven in the morning—holy shit—which means Bev will have already left for the gym. Which also means she won't be here to witness Eddie's shame. Oh, and his blatant breaking of company policies. Small blessings.

"You make coffee, I'm taking a shower," Eddie says, rolling out of bed. "The grinds are in the freezer, use the blueberry ones."

"Blueberry?" Richie makes a face, but he disappears out the bedroom door.

Eddie considers putting together a full piece suit, then decides he'll save that for later. He grabs sweats, underwear, and a henley, looking forward to a nice hot shower.

Some time later, Eddie leaves the bathroom to the scent of blueberry coffee in the air, a towel draped over his shoulders. He passes by the side table on the way to the kitchen, and spots the celadon vase he’s so sure he knocked over yesterday sitting in its usual spot. There’s a thin crack running along the circumference, spotted with bits of white where the glaze flaked off. The cigarette pack is tucked inside like nothing happened.

Bev keeps superglue in her work table. Richie must have stuck it back together while he was asleep. 

He finds Richie's leaning over the kitchen counter, making a face as he drinks from a mug. Eddie stares at him.

"I don't know how you can put this shit in your mouth," he says. "It tastes like ass."

Eddie tears his gaze away. Walking over to the machine, he pours himself a cup of coffee. "There are some bagels in the fridge, grab one if you want, I'll get dressed, then I'll drop you home."

"You're already dressed," Richie points out, opening the fridge to look inside. "Seriously, blueberry bagels? You've got a problem, my man."

Eddie shrugs. "Bev buys the bagels, I just eat them."

"You call your mom 'Bev?' Okay, weirdo. Is she hot? Only hot people wear stilettos in my experience."

"What the fuck," Eddie says, barely remembering yesterday's conversation. "Bev's my partner."

"You said you don't have a girlfriend," Richie says, and he almost looks disappointed.

"My business partner."

"You live with your business partner?"

"She's kind of my sister."

“How can someone be  _ kind of _ your sister?" Richie mutters more to himself than anything. Eddie does not deign to answer him. He's about to fuck off back to the bedroom, when Richie touches his shoulder. "Listen, man, I’m so sorry about yesterday.”

“It’s not your fault,” Eddie says. “But do me favour, tell Ziggy he’s a shithead bastard, and that he shouldn’t be handing out drugs without clearly explaining what they are. Also it’s illegal to not list ingredients on food labels.”

Richie grins, giving him a thumbs up. “Will do.”

He drops Richie back at his apartment, then turns right around, heading to the office. It's only a few blocks from the apartment, and if Eddie was thinking clearly yesterday, he would have suggested they go there instead.

He spots Bev through their open office door when he walks into the brownstone, laptop on her knees, feet up on their desk. Gross. He makes a beeline for the kitchen first, making himself a cup of coffee. The office is busy, despite it being Sunday. Their work week isn’t a standard one, because the job isn’t a nine-to-fiver. The employees get a set number of days off when they get days off, but there’s nothing regular about it. The job isn’t kind to personal lives, and they’ve lost quality employees over the years because of it. There’s nothing Eddie or Bev can do. It’s just the nature of the business.

He greets a few of his employees, chats about a high-profile returning client, then touches base with Gianna on how the newbies are coming along in their training. Banwatt’s excelling, but what else is new?

Thankfully Bev’s sitting like a normal human being when he comes into their office. She looks up from her laptop, a smirk on her face as Eddie drops down in the chair opposite their desk, setting his freshly made cup of joe on a designated coaster.

“Hey,” she says, leaning back in her chair, giving him her full attention. “How are you?”

“Fine, thanks.” Eddie’s well aware that he has bags under his eyes, and that he resembles week-old roadkill. “Mr. Moir wants one of our guys to watch his son while he’s at Cambridge.”

“Ah yes, cause of the…” She sniffs loudly, scratching the tip of her nose.

“The coke problem? Yeah, because of that. Moir claims his son’s stint in rehab was successful, but if he wants to hire protection to keep the kid from relapsing, I’m not so sure. I’m thinking we can fly Gianna out to handle him. Banwatt is doing fine on his own.”

“Or we could have him tag along with her to Cambridge? Call it extra training.”

Eddie nods at her suggestion. “That works.”

Bev waves her hand in the air. “Enough about business.” She leans forward. “I want to talk about you.”

“Aw hell,” Eddie mutters, rubbing his chin. He didn’t get the chance to shave.

“You can be so clueless when it comes to the guys you like,” she says, starting off with a big bang. Typical Bev. “With women it’s no biggie, you’re a regular lothario, but you’ve never been able to figure out if another guy’s into you unless they spell it out for you.”

Eddie frowns. “Why are you bringing this up?”

“You never told me it was going so well with your mysterious suitor.”

Eddie’s drawing a complete blank. “What?” He takes a huge gulp of coffee, hands twitching.

“The coat,” Bev says gleefully. “That big, orange thing. He left it on the couch. I saw it when I came home, and judging from your appearance...” She looks Eddie up and down. “...you got lucky last night.”

“Oh god,” Eddie says. He gets up and walks right out of the office, too tired to handle Bev right now.

"I can't wait to meet him!" Bev calls.

"Fuck no!"

Bev’s ringing laughter follows him all the way down the hall.


	7. New York, 2015

The MTA isn't Eddie's favourite way to get around the city, but it's the only way to beat the holiday rush. Every Christmas, Eddie suggests they take the car to Frida’s. And every year, Bev—the voice of reason—has to patiently explain why that would be a terrible idea. Ultimately, it comes down to traffic, traffic, traffic.

This year, the reason is snow, snow, snow.

It's one straight train to Harlem. They aren't carrying a wagon's worth of presents, unlike the poor woman sitting opposite them with bags under her eyes, bags at her feet, and two screaming children tucked under each arm. She's young, probably a single mother, trying her best so her children can have an easier life. Or maybe that's Eddie making assumptions.

Bev’s in charge of the casserole. Eddie has the gift bags, which are small enough to rest comfortably in his lap. Not on the slushy train floor. Small blessings.

"Merry Christmas, folks," a cheerful stranger says, clinging to the bar in front of them. He's a skinny man, but he's dressed to impress in a woolen coat, open to reveal a black suit.

Bev glances up from her phone for a bare second, head nodding to acknowledge his words though she likely didn't hear them. She's perfected New York subway etiquette to a tee: she sees nothing, but if she does, she’ll take it to the grave and never speak of it again.

Eddie's still learning the ropes.

"Nice day we're having," the man says, gesturing around the graffitied car like they aren't hurtling through a pitch black tunnel a hundred feet underground. "A beautiful white Christmas."

"Yeah." Eddie clears his throat, feeling as awkward as humanly possible. Small talk was never his forte.

The man chuckles, shrugging his shoulders. Water off a duck's back. He smiles like there’s nothing he’d rather do than speak to a complete stranger on the subway.

Eddie wonders if he’s feeling alright.

The man leans closer, a serious look on his face. “Are you aware that Jesus Christ died to save us from our sins?”

"And there it is," Bev comments without looking up.

Eddie groans, dropping his head into a cloud of fluffed tissue paper.

A picture perfect New York snowfall is the biggest lie the city ever told. The snow covers everything. It hides the dead rats, the homeless who couldn't find shelter in time, the shit, and the stench. It’s beautiful, for a time, but soon the snow melts, and all that’s left is the bodies.

Eddie steps around a lump of grey ice on the steps up to Frida’s apartment building in Harlem. Frida moved to the city a few years ago to be closer to them. New Jersey was far out of their way, and they weren’t able to see her as much as they wanted. In Harlem, Frida’s close, and she can afford rent on her teacher’s salary. She still refuses their financial help, even though they could buy her a place of her own. Frida enjoys independence and stubborness in equal amounts.

“The paint is flaking off the brick,” Bev remarks, frowning up at the building, her cigarette burning dangerously close to the filter. Eddie waves away the smoke blowing downwind into his face.

“I doubt that’s high on the super’s list of priorities,” Eddie says. “Considering the pipes still shake like a concerto if you turn the water too hot.”

“He won’t fix the pipes, he won’t tidy-up the exterior, what is he doing?”

“Collecting rent from our dear mother,” Eddie grumbles.

Bev drops her lit cigarette to the slush with a sizzle, stomping it out with her foot. Eddie raises a single brow, and she sighs, picking up the butt, flicking it into the gutter.

“Not what I meant,” Eddie says.

“The streets have seen worse.” She points out the pile of butts under the buzzer. “Prick doesn’t even sweep the step properly.”

The elevator’s out of order, again, so they walk up three flights of steps. Frida’s getting old. She had Bev when she was barely out of her teens, so compared to other people Bev’s age, Frida isn’t  _ that _ old. Still, walking up so many flights of stairs can’t be good for her. Especially since she spends much of her day standing in front of a chalkboard teaching calculus to snot-nosed children.

Frida opens her door with a wide smile. Her hair colour has faded over the years from a vibrant fire-engine red to a subdued strawberry blonde, but she’s kept it styled much the same. Always in a tidy bob. Frida once said she cut off all her hair when her husband died because he loved it long. She, hating his guts, thought a short style would be one final spit on his grave.

Frida takes the casserole dish from Bev, then pulls her into a one-handed hug, kissing her cheek with an audible smack. She pulls back to arms length, studying her face with her usual care. "Beverly, you grow more beautiful by the day. And my darling Eddie, you look so handsome."

"What, I'm not handsome too?" Bev kisses her mother's wrinkled cheek, leaving behind a spot of lipstick. Eddie rubs it off with his thumb, Frida giving him a thankful smile.

"Come in, come in." She waves them into the entranceway, setting the casserole on the nearby kitchen counter. "And yes, you are handsome, Beverly, but I want Eddie to feel special."

"You just have to call him beautiful, he'd love that." Eddie elbows her in the side. "What? It's the truth."

"Merry Christmas, Frida," Eddie says, handing her the gift bags he's kept hidden behind his back. "There’s something from both of us, then a little something just from me."

“Suck up,” Bev whispers. He discreetly flips her the bird.

"Oh, my love, thank you." She takes the bags, Bev and Eddie’s gifts to each other included among them. They've always opened their presents as a family. "I'll set them under the tree for now."

He’s hanging his and Bev’s coats when he notices a bath towel dangling from the rack. It’s bone dry, and has obviously been there a long time. Confused, he goes to toss it in the hamper outside the bathroom.

Eddie shuts the lid, and feels something brush against his feet. A tortoiseshell cat rubs itself against his ankles, meowing up at him with a plaintive look in its green eyes. He picks it up, and it gnaws on his fingers like it’s got nothing better to do.

“Is she okay?” Eddie asks, but the cat has nothing to offer but silence.

Eddie wanders back to the kitchen. He leans against the counter, scratching the cat’s chin. It closes its eyes, making biscuits on his chest. Frida has volunteered for a grassroots pet fostering program since she moved to Harlem. A few of her fosters have become certified therapy animals. Sometimes, she brings them to her classes. It’s no wonder she’s the most popular teacher at her school.

She’s always loved taking care of strays, Eddie included.

“What’s its name?” Eddie asks.

Frida slips the casserole dish in the oven to heat up, exchanging it for a perfectly roasted chicken. “Pollock, but I think that’s a very stupid name for a cat, so I’ve been calling him Poppy.”

Pollock/Poppy goes nuts, batting his paw at the steaming bird. Eddie sets him back on his feet. He meows, disgruntled.

“Mom,” Bev calls from the living room. She walks into the kitchen, a record in her hands, and a sly grin on her face.

“Is that Kenny Rogers?” Eddie asks, flabbergasted.

“Yes,” Bev says, like she can’t believe it herself. “There are five more on her shelf. One of them is a  _ Christmas album _ .”

“A person’s taste can change,” Frida says defensively, pulling her apron over her head, tossing it on the counter. “He’s not terrible.”

“Uh huh.” Bev sets the record down, a teasing smile on her lips. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frida says. She opens a drawer, pulling out a carving knife, slicing into the chicken with long, practiced strokes that could rival Gordon Ramsay.

Bev taps Kenny Rogers’ smiling face. “He has you listening to country. Who is he?”

Frida sighs, setting down the knife. “His name is Archie. He’s a colleague and a friend. Nothing more. Anything else would be inappropriate, considering he’s only eight years older than my children.”

“You deserve to be happy,” Bev says seriously. Eddie almost snags a piece of chicken skin, but Frida bats his hand away at the last second. “And last I checked forty-seven is well over eighteen.”

Frida barely dated when they were growing up. She was so focused on caring for them, and building the career she’s always wanted. Now that they’ve grown up, and Frida has a stable job that she loves, Bev’s been pushing her into dating more. Bev can barely keep a guy for more than a few months, so Eddie doesn’t think she gives the best advice. Harsh, but hypocrisy doesn’t look nice on anyone.

“This guy is lending you his vinyl. That’s a universal sign that he has a big, fat crush on you,” Bev says. “Is he handsome?”

“Bev,” Eddie warns. Frida’s an adult. She can confide in them, but ultimately she has final say. If the age difference bothers her so much, then it won’t stop bothering her no matter what. “Don’t.”

“It’s fine, Eddie.” Frida arranges the chicken on a platter, rolling her eyes at Bev with a fond, exasperated look on her face. “He looks like a young Sidney Poitier.” Pulling the warmed casserole out of the oven, she sets it on the stove beside a plate of roasted root vegetables. “He’s the most handsome man I’ve seen in my life.” She pauses, looks in Eddie’s direction, then says, “Not that your father wasn’t handsome.”

Eddie shrugs. “I’ve seen pictures of my dad, he was no Sidney Poitier.”

Frida, on the other hand, has always been movie star gorgeous. She hasn’t kept any pictures of Bev’s dad, but considering that Bev is a perfect clone of Frida in her forties, she got all her looks from her mother.

Frida smiles sadly. “Your father had much more going for him than his looks. He was a kind man, and I am so grateful to have known him.” She hands the chicken platter to Eddie, a distant look in her eyes. “Enough of this talk, go set the table with your sister.” 

Eddie nods silently, surprised that she brought up his dad. She never talks about him. Eddie always figured the wound never closed.

He kisses Frida’s cheek, then goes to do as he’s told.

After the dishes have been washed and put away, Eddie goes to the living room. It’s decorated to within an inch of its life with tinsel and evergreen, hung far out of a curious cat’s grasp. Poppy is curled up fast asleep on the squashy recliner, so Eddie forgoes it in favour of the loveseat. He clears a healthy stack of scientific journals from the cushions, laying them on the coffee table.

Frida emerges from the kitchen with two mugs of hot chocolate in hand. Bev trails after with her own mug, full to the brim with marshmallows.

“You’re going to get diabetes,” Eddie tells Bev. He accepts his hot chocolate, containing a single marshmallow, with a smile and a murmured ‘thank you.’

“Worth it,” she says, curling up at the foot of the recliner. She practically inhales the drink.

“Doubt that’s what people with diabetes say.”

_ “Children,” _ Frida scolds, sitting next to Eddie.

Eddie rolls his eyes. He nudges the corner of the journal stack with his toe. “Still subscribed to these, I see.”

“Can’t seem to get rid of them,” Frida jokes. She’s been reading scientific journals since they were kids, she used to keep them in the bathroom, beside her bed, and on the couch where they still reside. When he was a kid, the articles flew over his head. They still do today.

Eddie chooses one from the pile. It’s a December issue, from four years ago. The cover features a snow white lab rat with red, beady eyes. Nothing like the buff New York subway rats who could haul away an entire pizza in a snap.

“Rats, huh?” Eddie says. “Sure got enough of those little bastards in the city.”

“They’re more compassionate than you would think,” Frida says, taking the journal from him, setting it back on the pile.

Now that he’s paying attention, he notices piles of journals scattered all over the room in an eclectic mess. Poppy seems to have shredded quite a few.

“The rats?” Eddie says skeptically.

She nods, eyes shining the way they only do when she teaches. “A rat, when faced with another rat locked in a cage, will work a puzzle until it figures out how to free its friend. And I know what you must be thinking, the rat craves companionship, it doesn’t care that the other rat is suffering.” She roots through the journals, picking another one, handing it to Eddie. “This year a group of Japanese scientists expanded the study. But now, they distressed the caged rat. The freed rat would almost always ignore a food prize in order to save its friend. And even more so if it had previously been caged, proving that their behaviour was in fact driven by… um.” Frida stops suddenly, like a car skidding to a halt. She blinks.

“Frida?” Eddie lays his hand on top of hers.

“Mom?” Bev asks, leaning forward. Poppy, awakens, batting at her hair.

Frida frowns down at her lap. “Well, this is embarrassing. What’s the word?”

“Compassion?” Bev suggests.

Frida shakes her head. “No, no. It’s when you understand something because you’ve felt it before.”

“Empathy?” Eddie asks.

Frida snaps her fingers. “That’s it.”

Bev chuckles. She reaches behind her and picks up Poppy, sitting him in her lap like he’s a baby. “So that means empathy is nature not nurture. Humans don’t take care of each other because that’s what society teaches us. We do it because it’s instinctive.”

“What about people who kick dogs?” Eddie asks. A chill rushes down his spine like an overflowing storm drain. Goosebumps prickle over his skin, making the hair on his arms stand up. Eddie inhales sharply, but like a fly in a trap, his breath catches in his chest.

There’s a teenager with greasy black hair curled casually on the carpet, a collection of fresh and long-healed scratches on the backs of his hands. His eyes are milky, his cheeks sunken in, he’s a boy long dead and rotting in the drain. Eddie squeezes his eyes shut. He’s not real. That’s not real. It can’t be real.

When he cracks his eyes open again, the boy is gone. Bev is still there, and her expression betrays her concern. She opens her mouth to say something, but Eddie beats her to it.

“What about a kid that traps animals in a fridge just to hear them scream? Did someone teach him that, or is it instinctive?”

“That’s so dark, Eds,” Bev says, cupping her hands over Poppy’s ears, staring at him with wide eyes. He’s surprised with himself. He doesn’t know where that came from. Bev frowns. “I think that people are born with empathy, but life doesn’t nurture them, so they turn into monsters. Still, there’s gotta be more good than bad in the world. Otherwise this planet would have burned to the ground a long time ago.”

“Enough.” Frida claps her hands loudly, startling them. “Shall we open gifts?”

She gets up from the loveseat, and Eddie watches her bend in front of the tree, collecting the gift bags. She’s never been shocked by difficult conversations. In fact, she consistently dives headfirst into them.

Frida wordlessly hands out the gifts, even dropping a small package in front of Poppy.

“What happened to the rats?” Eddie asks when she sits back down beside him.

Frida frowns, making the lines on her forehead crease. She reaches into the gift bag, and takes the card out first. “We don’t have rats in this building, only the occasional mouse. Eddie, please don’t jinx me.”

His chest aches, and he has to look away from her. His throat tightens, hands clenching at his sides. The last time he saw Frida, he had hoped he was wrong, but now he knows he definitely isn’t, and that makes this all the more painful. The signs are there, they’ve just been ignoring them, hoping it goes away. The mess in the apartment, when Frida is usually so organized. The forgetting, when her mind was always solid as a rock. That fucking towel.

He glances at Bev, and they share a knowing, terrified look.

Frida’s pulling on her new cardigan when Eddie’s work phone beeps with an incoming call. Bev looks up with a frown that smooths into resignation when he pulls out his BlackBerry. Duty calls.

He checks the display. It’s Richie. Excusing himself, he goes to the bathroom, turning the lock on the door.

“Richie, what’s wrong?” He asks, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the shower door. His face is paler than snow.

Richie usually texts. There are only a few reasons why he would get a call from his work phone on Christmas, and none of them are good. Thoughts of kidnappers demanding ransom, or home invaders—no matter how unlikely—come to mind.

_ “I’m drunk,”  _ Richie says through the line.

“What?” Eddie hisses. He sits on the toilet lid, foot accidentally hitting yet another stack of journals. They cascade across the bathmat. He gathers them up, returning them to order, frowning when he notices a few duplicates. Shaking his head, he focuses on the matter at hand.

Richie is drunk. Eddie has never seen alcohol in Richie’s apartment. So either Richie is very good at hiding things, or he went out. Eddie can’t make out any ambient noise though the line.

“Where are you?"

_ “Home,”  _ Richie says, and if Eddie listens closely, he can hear the faint rustling of sheets. _ “I slipped Paulo a Benjamin to buy me vodka. He got me Four Lokos instead.”  _

“Fucking hell,” Eddie mutters, glaring at a spot of mold on the corner of the tub.

_ “Eddie, my man, my mouth is so red it looks like a vampire jizzed in it. Wait. No, bled in my mouth? Nevermind. Fuck. Do they still put caffeine in this stuff? I am so fucked.” _

Pointing a finger at the spot, he imagines he’s pointing between Richie’s eyes. “If I find your rotting corpse drowned in vomit, I’m going to resurrect you, then kill you again,” he bites out, actual worry making him frustrated by the fact that he's in this bathroom and not with Richie.

_ “Nevermind, I don’t think I’m drunk anymore.”  _ Richie clears his throat.

Eddie huffs. He gets up, and rummages under the sink, finding a spray bottle of bleach. He spritzes the spot until it’s thoroughly saturated.

_ “Actually, I only had one Four Loko, and I nearly threw it up. It was candy cane flavoured. Candy. Cane. Favoured.”  _ Richie emphasises, the disgust palpable in his voice.

“If you’re not drunk, why did you call?”

_ “I needed an excuse to talk to you,” _ Richie says so quietly, Eddie can barely hear him.  _ “Brona sent me a Christmas card.” _

“Brona?” Eddie asks, confused.

Before the unfortunate weed incident, he overheard a snippet from Richie’s conversation with Ziggy. He mentioned a Brona then, but not who she is. An ex-girlfriend? A stalker? She can’t be a colleague. Her name wasn’t on the list of cast and crew. Whatever her relationship with Richie, it’s none of Eddie’s business. He just needs to know if she has antagonistic feelings towards him.

“Has she threatened you?” Eddie asks.

_ “She should, I’d deserve it.” _

“That’s not helpful,” Eddie says through clenched teeth.

_ “She’s sixteen.” _

“Still, not helpful.”

_ “She’s not the reason you were hired, if that’s what you’re asking.” _

“Then why was I hired?”

Silence sits on the line for a long moment, during which Eddie holds his breath. He fully expects Richie to deflect the question like every other time.

_ "I gotta make a decision, man,”  _ Richie says in a rush, like if he gets it out fast enough he can pretend he isn’t spilling his guts. _ “I hoped it would go away on its own, but it’s not and now my manager keeps telling me I have to triage. Whose sucking chest wound do I fix first? My own? Society's? Or maybe the damaged guy that keeps leaving pictures of me fucking other men on my doorstep?" _

Eddie inhales sharply.

_ “I should have told you before, but I was—” He takes a breath. “I’m being blackmailed. My manager knows, but the only reason he does is because the blackmailer sent a mailer to his office with the photos.”  _ Richie whispers the next part,  _ “I never told Steve I was gay. He found out because of the pictures.” _

Eddie opens his mouth, but no words come out. It’s not often that he’s so shocked. Of all possible senarios he thought up, Richie being blackmailed because he’s gay wasn’t even on the list. Richie seems so stereotypically straight, based on his filmography and everything about him. But then again, Eddie doesn’t fit into any stereotypes about bisexual men.

One thing is beautifully, painfully clear. Richie trusts him enough to confide in him. Eddie has to keep that trust.

Boxing away his emotional reaction, he focuses on the facts at hand. “So it’s revenge porn.”

_ “No,”  _ Richie says shortly. “ _ These men, they won’t talk to the press. I don’t know who’s doing it, but it isn’t any of the people I’ve slept with.” _

“Unless they’ve signed NDAs, you can’t dismiss—”

_ “Eddie, I’m telling you, it isn’t them. I’m not an idiot, okay? They weren’t hookups I picked up from random bars. These people are my friends, I know them, and I trust them.” _

“That doesn’t mean anything. People will do anything for money,” Eddie says. He needs Richie to understand. Blind trust is a mistake. Most of the restraining orders attached to clients’ files are against family members or former friends. There’s nothing that grows hate more than love.

_ “They aren’t asking for money.” _

Eddie rubs a hand over his face. “Then what are they asking for?”

_ “That’s the thing, they haven’t made any demands. They just keep leaving these fucking pictures outside my door,”  _ Richie says.

Eddie couldn’t understand why Ziggy was delivering Richie’s weed in such a strange way. Now he does. It was never Ziggy in the first place.

_ “I don’t know how they’re getting into the building. I asked Paulo to check the system, but he hasn’t seen anyone suspicious going to my floor, and there are no cameras outside my apartment. I’m losing my goddamn mind.” _

“They’re trying to get in your head.” Eddie takes a deep breath. “Do you still have the mailers?” At Richie’s confirmation, Eddie says, “I want you to put them in a brand new ziplock bag, don’t bother with gloves since you’ve probably already touched them. Keep the sealed ziplock in a cool, dry place, and I’ll come to pick it up tomorrow.”

He’ll swab the mailers, then have a lab run whatever DNA he finds through an ancestry database. He can narrow down likely suspects from there. Submitting someone’s DNA without their consent isn’t exactly legal, and it won’t hold up in court, but his job isn’t to help Richie win a trial. He has to keep him safe, and knowing who to look for is a step in the right direction.

“We’ll find this guy, don’t worry. I’ll come by tomorrow afternoon, okay?” Eddie asks softly.

_ “Thank you.” _ Richie pauses for a second, then tentatively adds,  _ “Eddie? Happy holidays.” _

He sounds so heartbreakingly lonely. Eddie can’t imagine how he would feel if he didn’t have Frida or Bev. He doesn't think he’d be able to handle it. Richie sounds like he’s used to being alone.

Eddie wanders back into the living room. Tissue paper is scattered over the carpet, and Bev wears her arrow necklace, smiling when she notices him looking.

For a brief moment Eddie wonders if Patty is enjoying her earrings. Except, he doesn’t know anyone named Patty, and the thought is gone as soon as it appears.

Bev raises a questioning brow, and Eddie gives her a discreet nod. The situation has been handled. Tomorrow, he’ll check up on Richie. But for now, his focus has to be on his family.

After all, it’s Christmas.

“Eddie, darling, could you put this on for me?” Frida holds up his gift to her, a record: The Beach Boys’  _ Pet Sounds. _

When he was a kid, he used to call it the goat album. Frida lost her copy during the move to Harlem, and the remastered version is best not spoken of. A few months back, he managed to find an ‘86 mono pressing. He paid an arm and leg for it, but he has so many fond memories of foregoing his homework in order to dance with her in their New Jersey kitchen. He used to stand on her feet while she spun him around, Bev laughing in the background.

He slips the record out of its sleeve, flipping it to side two. He drops the needle on the vinyl. As the intro to  _ God Only Knows _ plays, he holds his hand out to Frida.

“Such a gentleman,” she laughs when he pulls her to her feet, spinning her around.

“My lady.” He bows dramatically, a silly grin on his lips. Frida’s hand is so frail in his, her veins standing out prominently.

“Your father used to dance with me in the restaurant.” She looks off somewhere over his shoulder, lost in time. “Oh how I miss him. He used to donate venison to the kitchen, so Al let us get away with dancing my shift away. Frank could sell you salt in the middle of the ocean, he was so good at getting what he wanted.” Her eyes shift back to Eddie’s, her smile fond. “You are so much your father’s son. You have his eyes…” She tweaks his nose. “...his chin. But it’s not just his looks. You carry his heart and soul.” She drops her hand to his chest, tapping a finger on his sternum. “You have his kindness, and his love.”

“Frida...” Eddie trails off, lost for words. They’re not dancing anymore, just swaying in place. Frida was never big on words, she showed her love in everyday gestures. A note in his lunchbox, an enthusiastically read bedtime story, a band-aid and kiss on a bruised knee.

She smiles, eyes creasing. “You’ll always be my precious boy.” She turns to Bev who is slightly more watery-eyed than before, holding out her hand. Bev gets up and joins them, the song changing to  _ Here Today _ . “And you, my girl, are my beautiful baby.”

They make room for Bev. She wraps an arm around Eddie’s waist and throws another over Frida’s shoulder. Frida spins the three of them around as the record plays _ , _ laughing when Eddie trips over his own feet, giggling when Bev compliments her groovy moves.

She looks up at both of them, her smile fading, a little crease appearing between her brows. “This song is so beautiful. What is it called?”

Eddie buries his face in her hair, and cries in the arms of the only mother he’s known.

“She’s getting worse,” Bev says as they walk side by side down the street. Eddie hunches his shoulders against the wind, hands shoved in his pockets. “I’ll set up an appointment with her doctor.”

Eddie scrunches an old receipt in his pocket in lieu of digging his nails into his palms. “Last time he said she wouldn’t get better, but he didn’t say she would get worse.”

“You know how these things are,” Bev says sadly. A plow clears a foot of snow off the street, burying a white sedan parked in the bike lane. 

“No, not really,” Eddie bites out. Vapor dissipates from his mouth, vanishing as the wind blows it away. “She never talked about my dad before. She always said she couldn’t remember, but now she’s telling me about their dates? Do you think she was lying?” Eddie’s voice cracks, his eyes burning. “Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know, Eddie. I wish I did, I really do, but I don’t. Bev links her arm with his, her warmth an insistent line along his side. “I’m scared too.”

“It’s hereditary,” he says grimly.

“Yeah. We both have our fair share of memory disorders. I don’t think whatever is wrong with my head would do well fighting for real estate with dementia,” she says the big D word, and it sits like a stone between them. They stop near the flight of stairs down to the subway station, and Bev turns her face up to the night sky. She sighs. “Who knows, maybe they’ll cancel each other out, and I’ll finally be normal.” She looks at him. “Then it’ll just be you.”

Eddie can’t bring himself to say it, but he doesn’t think they’ll ever be normal. Whatever normal is, anyway.

“No matter what happens, I’ll take care of you” Eddie promises. “Just as we’re going to take care of Frida.”

“Does it bother you?” Bev asked him once, years ago, as they sat on their old ratty couch in their old ratty living room, a bottle of limoncello between them. Limoncello is meant to be drunk in the height of summer, but it was the dead of winter and the limoncello was bitter.

“Does what bother me?”

“That we forget so easily,” Bev said, then even quieter, “London.”

Eddie turned his head to look at her. “I remember London just fine.”

She rolled her eyes. Reaching for the bottle, she took a long, sordid gulp. Eddie had waited for her to finish. The limoncello was garbage, but it stung like a song on the way down, and Eddie appreciated that.

Bev wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “Those are two separate questions, and you know it.”

If there’s one thing that defines Eddie and Bev’s relationship, it’s that they don’t go anywhere without the other.

When Bev ran away with her boyfriend at sixteen to front his terrible ska band, she never entertained the idea of leaving Eddie behind. Eddie slept in the back of their van while Bev did shows. Eventually, her shitty boyfriend abandoned them by the side of the road in rural Pennsylvania. They called Frida from a truck stop phone booth, and she drove up from New Jersey to get them. When she found them, cold and tired, the only thing she asked was if they were done finding themselves. Together. Because it’s been the Eddie and Bev show for as long as they can remember.

They look nothing alike, nor do they share a drop of blood, but Frida likes to say they’re joined at the hip, practically twins. It’s meant to be a joke, but it never feels like one.

When Eddie graduated from university, he took his first trip overseas. He attended business seminars, he met new people, he saw the sights. He forgot he had a sister. A week later he came home and saw a stranger sitting on his couch.

For Eddie, it was complete erasure. Bev didn’t have it so bad; their apartment was filled to the brim with mementos of their life together. She remembered Eddie, she just lost her emotional connection to him. He walked through the door, and all she saw was her roommate. Not her brother, and not her friend. It took a month of awkward conversations, and an intervention or two from Frida for everything to return to normal.

Applying logic to concepts that make no sense is an exercise in futility. Frida paid for doctors who said scary things like expanded infantile amnesia and tick-borne encephalitis, but nothing was conclusive. There’s something wrong with them. They’ve known it for years. That time on the couch, when they were too drunk to care, was the only time they talked about it. London was but one incident among many.

With a bottle of limoncello between them, Eddie said, “I hate it, but there’s nothing we can do. We have to learn to live like this.”

So they did.


	8. New York, 2015

Snow hangs from boughs like marshmallow fluff as Eddie trails after his dad. It swirls in the air, glittering in the sun. Deer tracks sink deep into the drifts, but he floats in his brand new pair of snowshoes. 

His dad came into the kitchen while Eddie was cooking breakfast, took one look at his cast-free arm, and asked if he’d like to join him on a hunting trip. Eddie’s first—he was finally old enough. He’d been ecstatic. He’s trying to remember that excitement as the wind whistles through the trees, the only sound apart from the two of them.

There’s something eerie about Maine in the middle of winter, like if he walks far enough into the forest, he’ll reappear in the past.

Eddie clutches his canteen to his chest, the other arm outstretched for balance. If he breaks his ankle, his dad loses a day. It's nearing the middle of December, only a few more days before the bow hunting season ends. He already fell once, cutting his chin on a chunk of ice. His dad had frowned when Eddie bit his bottom lip to stop the tears from falling. He cradled Eddie’s face in his big, rough hands and said he didn’t have to pretend. Sometimes life hurts. He smoothed a band-aid on the cut and said a little crying never hurt anyone.

His dad is going slower than normal. Every minute or so he turns to make sure Eddie is still behind him. More than sixty miles of pine forest separate the towns of Derry and Castle Rock. Losing his way is a death sentence.

A twig cracks, and Eddie's head snaps to follow the sound. A hundred feet away, a stag steps out from behind a pine. It noses around in the snow, ears flicking.

It hasn't noticed him. Eddie's dressed head to toe in Blaze orange. Too many people die every year from hunting accidents; he isn't about to become a statistic. To deer, he looks like a brown smudge among all the other brown smudges.

His breath escapes in a fog. The stag twitches, turning in his direction. Black, animal eyes look right through him. Eddie's frozen in place. He can’t warn his dad without scaring it off. The stag’s hindlegs step forward, backwards, indecisive, as Eddie watches. He’s watching when its head lifts from the snow and keeps going, stretching, until the thing that was a stag rises on its hind legs, piercing through the canopy. Its eyes aren’t black, they’re the empty sockets where eyes should be. Its mouth splits open to reveal rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth.

Eddie’s breath wheezes out of him. His canteen falls to the snow. Clutching his hands to his chest, he stares at it, horrified. It tilts its head, bones creaking, but it’s not here for him. It turns and melts back into the woods.

Shaking, Eddie forgets everything his dad told him about the dangers of running in the woods. He takes off, following the snowshoe tracks.

“Daddy,” Eddie whimpers, pushing low-hanging branches out of his way, blinking snow out of his eyes as it falls from the canopy. “Where are you?”

Eddie trips on something buried in the snow, and stumbles onto a pure white shoreline. A sheet of ice stretches out in front of him, reflecting the sunny sky above. On the far side of the lake, his dad stands, facing the woods, compound bow in hand. Until he turns around to check on him. Eddie rubs his eyes. Everything else is clear as day, but his dad’s face is a blur, like Eddie’s looking at him through a foggy window. 

The creature emerges from the trees. Its fur is matted filthy, yellowed antlers thick as tree trunks curl from the top of its head. His dad is facing the wrong direction. He can’t see it. He can’t see the horror right in front of him. He’s too busy searching for Eddie.

“Daddy!”

Eddie takes off across the lake, feet finding traction on the smooth ice. He has to warn him. That thing is gonna eat him whole. 

It’s reaching for his dad with a clawed hook of a hand, maggots falling from pitch-black sockets. It lunges, maw open and full of needles. Its mouth engulfs his dad to the neck. Eddie shrieks, and the sound echoes throughout the forest. Tears stream down his cheeks, and the ice beneath his feet groans. It shatters with a tremendous boom and he plummets into icy water.

Eddie shoots up in bed, a scream tearing his throat. 

A pounding sounds down the hallway, and Bev throws his door open. She rushes into his bedroom, flicking on the light. She freezes when she sees him. He must look a mess: a pale, middle-aged guy sobbing his heart out. Still, she doesn’t care. She’s never cared. Climbing into his bed, she pulls him into the cradle of her arms.

“It was just a dream, Eds,” she whispers.

Eddie grabs onto her, tears blurring his vision. He’s probably hurting her, he’s clinging so tight. He kicked off his blankets during the night. They’re pooled on the ground. He shivers, from fear or cold, he's not sure what.

“I saw it, it was there, it… it killed him.” Eddie takes a deep, shuddering breath. “And I couldn’t stop it.”

“Shhh,” she murmurs, running shaking fingers through his hair. “It was just a dream,” she repeats like she’s trying to convince herself.

She holds him until he stops crying. Only then does she get up to turn off the light. She gathers the blankets over the two of them, turning Eddie around, pressing her cold knees to the back of his. She tucks her face into the crook of his neck. The bitter cigarette smoke clinging to her hair anchors him to the present.

Neither of them get any sleep that night.

"Shit, man, you don't look so good," is the first thing Richie says when he opens his apartment door. 

Eddie worked out at the gym that morning. He ran a few miles on the treadmill, and lifted some weights, anything to get his mind far away from trees and the scent of wet fur lingering in his nose. He barely remembers it; his dreams rarely stick around once he wakes up. But an eerie sensation persists, like snakes slithering under his skin. He knows it was a nightmare about his dad and the woods, but everything else draws a blank.

Before Eddie left the gym, he smoothed on a bit of concealer to hide the dark circles. He had checked his reflection in the elevator mirror on the way up. Except for a little reddening of his eyes, he thought he looked perfectly fine.

Objectively, Richie seems worse off. His hair is mussed, and he’s wearing a holey t-shirt with a pair of plaid boxers that stop over a pair of knobby knees. His legs are bare, like he crawled out of bed this morning and couldn’t bother getting dressed.

“Long night,” Eddie says, pushing past Richie. He toes off his shoes, unraveling the scarf from around his neck. “Do you have the mailer?”

Richie scratches the back of his neck, looking everywhere but at Eddie. “It’s in the cabinet beside the fridge.”

He walks down the hallway, and Eddie trails after him. There’s an empty frying pan on the stove, and a half-eaten omelette on the counter.

“Sorry for interrupting your...” Eddie glances at his wristwatch; it’s nearly one in the afternoon. “...lunch.”

Richie bends over, rummaging around in the cabinet, plaid stretching over the curves of his ass. Eddie's mouth goes drier than a three week-old croissant. He’s no connoisseur of asses, but Richie’s is pretty darn fine.

He remembers being twenty, watching  _ SuburBBQ  _ for the first time, jerking it to a foul-mouthed comedian named Dick Tozier. He remembers sweating over Richie’s skinny legs and his pretty smile, but mostly his legs. They were a revelation. The skies opened up, the angels sang hallelujah, and Eddie knew he hit the bisexuality jackpot.

Now, Richie—who Eddie always thought was straighter than a pencil—confided in him, because, surprise surprise, he  _ trusts  _ him enough to tell him the secret he’s being  _ blackmailed  _ over, and Eddie doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with that information. Richie is gay. So very, very gay. Richie enjoys the company of men. Oh hey, Eddie also enjoys the company of men. The stars have aligned.

“It wasn’t good anyway, I’m no chef.” Richie rises, shutting the cabinet with a click that serves to snap Eddie out of his thoughts. He quickly looks up and away because the stars have not aligned, and he cannot be caught staring at his client’s ass.

Richie holds out the ziplock, but doesn’t let go when Eddie reaches for it. “What are you gonna do when you figure it out?” 

_ “If  _ I figure it out.” Eddie studies Richie’s face; the little frown at the corner of his mouth, the worried dip in his brows. “It’s a face to look out for in a crowd.”

“You’ll still be my bodyguard,” Richie says with a sigh of relief. He lets go of the ziplock. 

Eddie nods, biting down on a smile. “My contract is for the length of your stay in the city, and as far as I’m aware, that’s a few months more.”

Richie bobs his head. “I trust you, and I know if you figure out who’s threatening me, getting a restraining order would be better, legally speaking.”

“A piece of paper can’t keep you safe if someone really wants to hurt you.”

“But you can.”

He finally lets a smug smile peek through. “I can.”

“Can you also run lines?” Richie asks unexpectedly, stumbling over his words in his rush to get them out. “I usually, uh, do it with Ziggy over Skype, but he’s in Jamaica for the break, smoking weed and living it up on the beach, while I’m stuck here. I’m not that much of a dick to make him work when he’s on vacation.”

“You’re on vacation too,” Eddie points out.

“Yeah, but I actually like rehearsals. I don’t have the raw talent Ziggy has, I had to work at it. Running lines in front of a mirror only goes so far, and my improv group is back in LA, so I don’t have anything to get my creative juices flowing while I’m here.”

Eddie frowns, unsure. “I doubt I’ll be much help.”

“That’s not a no,” Richie points out.

He smiles. “You’re right, that’s not a no.” Eddie sets the ziplock down on the counter, pushing it back to Richie with two of his fingers. “Tell you what, stick this bad boy back in the cupboard, and remind me to take it when I go, okay?”

Richie grins brilliantly. “Deal.”

“Do people really watch this?” Eddie looks up from the script with a grimace.

To say the dialogue is utter garbage is to insult garbage. At least a pile of trash smells like death on a hot summer day. You can't not notice it. Richie’s show is so boring, it’s a single wet sock lost in a sea of bad television. He’d rather watch a golf tournament than sit through five minutes of this torture.

Eddie wonders if he would have tuned in if he hadn’t met Richie. Probably. Nowadays he gets enough of a Richie fix driving him to and from work, he feels no need to watch his shitty movies.

“We get okay ratings.” Richie drops down onto the couch next to Eddie with his own script. “No thanks to me, because I sure as hell don’t watch it.”

Richie faces him, sitting criss-cross applesauce, hands resting on his knobby knees. He’s the very picture of relaxation. He grins, and Eddie finds himself smiling back.

In an effort to make himself more comfortable, Eddie tucks his leg under himself, wrinkling his pants. His suit jacket hangs off the back of the couch, shirt sleeves unbuttoned and rolled to his elbows. Richie suggested he remove his tie too, but he just loosened it. There’s only so much letting go he’s willing to do.

“It used to be good, y’know,” Richie says, “but then the head writer left over creative differences, which is industry talk for a couple of money men coming along and cutting all the good bits out in order to appeal to a certain demographic. Believe it or not, but I used to think this project would save my career.” Richie rolls his eyes.

Eddie stares at him blankly, unaware that his career was in need of saving. He’s no household name, but Richie has appeared in a lot of financially—if not critically—successful movies. Sure, a lot of them deal in nostalgia and gross sexist tropes, but it’s called acting for a reason. Richie’s movies are terrible, but Eddie never watched them for the plot. He watched them for Richie himself, which must mean he’s doing something right. Richie wasn’t a lead in some of his older pictures, but he still carried them limping to the finish line.

“Let's start with page three, you’re playing my wife in this scene.”

Eddie flips to said page. The setting is the family kitchen. Richie’s perfect wife is happily making dinner for her imperfect husband. Except, he comes home having already eaten. With his female co-worker, who is madly in love with him. Yikes.

Eddie's stiff as expected, robotically reading lines off the script while Richie already has his memorized. He plays ‘the douchebag who doesn’t know how good he’s got it’ so well, Eddie feels an overwhelming urge to sock him in the face.

Eddie doesn’t think Richie’s bothered by his stuttering performance. Just as Eddie does his best work pouring over schedules and contracts, Richie’s in his element like this.

“Y’know, you’re not that bad,” Richie says at the end of the scene, tossing the script carelessly onto the coffee table.

Eddie makes a noise in his throat that could only be described as a guffaw. He meets Richie’s eyes, and his brain stutters to a stop. Richie is sitting so close to him, despite all the available space on the massive couch. Their arms are a spare inch from touching. His legs… well, Richie’s bare legs are best overlooked, lest Eddie’s hands start sweating.

“Don’t lie to me,” he says, “I don’t need my ego stroked.”

Eddie shifts, foot falling to the floor. He looks away to the window across the room, where snow is falling so thick and white he can barely make out the buildings across the street.

Richie laughs, and drops a hand to rest just above Eddie’s knee. Eddie is all too aware of its presence and the heat of him radiating through the fabric. Richie squeezes gently, and his breath stutters.

Richie collects the script, thoroughly in Eddie’s personal space, and tosses it away.

"You don’t see me any differently, do you?" Richie asks, tilting his head to the side. His gaze is so clear, so studious, he watches Eddie like a deer who lives its entire life on the lookout for predators.

But he has no reason to be afraid.

"I'm bi, discriminating against you would be hypocritical."

"Not discrimination, I don't think you're capable of it." Richie’s eyes drop, and he’s not looking into Eddie’s eyes anymore, but at his mouth, his jaw, his throat. Back to his mouth. “You’re too nice.”

"Everyone is capable of prejudice," he says, licking his lips. “And I’m not nice.”

Richie gently slides his hand to cover Eddie’s. 

“You’re the nicest guy I know.” He turns his hand over so they’re palm to palm and runs his warm fingers down the full length of his hand until their only point of contact is the tips of their fingers. Eddie’s heart beats in his throat. “I haven't known a lot of nice guys.”

“Nice guys are overrated,” Eddie says softly, afraid that if he speaks too loud, he might shatter this moment into a million pieces.

Eddie hasn’t always made great choices in his dating life. He’s never made objectively bad decisions like Bev, but goodness on the surface does not always translate to goodness underneath. Treating kindness like it’s deserving of a reward, can turn the best of people into real fucking monsters. Eddie would know.

Richie drops Eddie’s fingers. Eddie watches, rapt, as Richie’s hand moves down to his thigh, high enough that his intentions cannot be misconstrued, but low enough that he’s still asking permission. “Okay, so you’re not that nice.”

A charged moment passes between them.

Richie leans forward and Eddie startles, surprised that, despite all the signals, he doesn’t see it coming. It’s a chaste kiss, relatively speaking, closed mouthed and gentle, but the insistent hand on his thigh is anything but. He quickly gets with the program. Richie’s fingers dig into his muscle, his other hand slipping into Eddie’s hair. His fingers graze the tip of Eddie’s ear, in a lingering touch.

The kiss ramps up from soft to demanding the moment Richie pulls his hair. He tilts Eddie’s head where he wants it, adjusting the angle until Eddie’s left breathless. Eddie grabs hold of Richie’s waist holding him steady, as Richie hooks a leg over his thighs to straddle him. Eddie wishes the couch was built for comfort rather than design; he’s in danger of bashing his head on the edge of the godawful painting above them.

It doesn’t take long for Eddie’s hands to wander. He slips his fingers beneath the waistband of Richie’s boxers. He pushes Richie’s shirt up so he can feel each individual bump on his spine beneath his calloused fingers. He scrapes his neatly trimmed nails down Richie’s back.

Richie bites his lip, muffling a maddening moan.

Richie crushes Eddie's once neatly-pressed collar as he runs his hands down the front of his white shirt. He flips Eddie’s tie over his shoulder, then undoes the buttons over his heart. The shock of Richie’s palms—colder than the air between them—meeting his skin has his hips jerking in the air. He’s hard, uncomfortably so against his zipper without any real pressure to take care of it. All of Richie’s weight rests on his thighs. 

Eddie’s tipsy, drunk on lust and the warmth of Richie so close.

He rests a hand on the back of Richie’s neck, twirling his finger around a curl of Richie’s hair, tugging it to get his attention. 

He knows exactly what he wants, and he knows it’s a terrible idea. This whole situation is a terrible idea. And yet, what Eddie says next is, “Bedroom?”

Richie blinks a few times, gaze clearing. “I need to get off first.” His eyes widen. “Get off of you, I mean.”

Eddie chuckles, rubbing Richie’s back. “Not that I mind the position we’re in, it’s just this,” Eddie gestures to the couch, “isn’t very comfortable.”

Richie leans back, and sucks in a breath, eyes darting over Eddie’s face like he can’t believe this is real. In some ways it does feel like a fever dream; something that would never happen in reality, only in the deepest confines of his brain. Richie climbs off Eddie’s lap, looking like he wants nothing more than to sit back down again.

If one of Eddie’s employees put the moves on a client, consensual or not, Eddie would fire them so fast their head would spin, and yet here he is, making one bad decision after another. If anyone found out, it would set a precedent. Eddie can’t follow his own rules, therefore he deserves no authority.

He should pull away, he should apologize and leave. He should pretend this never happened.

Richie bends over and cups Eddie’s jaw, kissing him again. All thoughts of consequences dissolve into a wave of desire. 

He scoots forward, about to stand, when he notices a significant bulge in Richie’s boxers. Richie turns, but Eddie wraps a hand around his wrist before he can go. He tugs him close, until he’s standing between his knees. Later on, he’ll think back on this and wonder where the instinct to brace a hand on Richie thigh, lean in and mouth at him came from. He’s always been quite reserved in the bedroom. He’s never done anything like this.

Eddie looks up and catches Richie’s eye, his lips spread over his clothed cock.

Richie’s breath stutters. “Take off your tie,” he murmurs. “Slowly.”

Eddie pulls back and sinks a finger into his tie’s knot, tugging it until the loop is large enough to slip over his head. He drapes it over his jacket, then rises to his feet, crowding in on Richie until he takes a step back. His calves hit the coffee table, sending the big book on coinage cascading to the floor. Neither of them pay it any attention.

“Bedroom?” Eddie asks for the second time today.

Richie nods, and Eddie takes him by the hand, pulling him past the kitchen, down the hallway.

Richie opens his bedroom door, and Eddie takes the opportunity to curl his hand in Richie's collar, pressing him into the wall and kissing him open-mouth and enthusiastic.

Richie nudges a thigh between Eddie’s legs before cupping his ass. “I think you should take off your pants.”

“Yeah?” Eddie murmurs, pressing his mouth to Richie’s neck, barely nipping it. He absolutely cannot mark him in a way that will last more than a few days, or the people on his makeup team are bound to ask some awkward questions.

“It’s a pants-free bedroom.” Richie squeezes his ass with one hand. The other, he sneaks between them, pulling open Eddie’s belt buckle, undoing the button and tugging down the zip. He dips his fingers into Eddie’s underwear, curling them around his cock.

Eddie breaks the kiss, dropping his head to Richie’s shoulder with a groan. He helps Richie push down his pants, and kicks them off once they’re down to his ankles. They stumble further into the bedroom and Eddie’s knees hit the bed, making him sit down.

Eddie’s down to his shirt and underwear, but when Richie straddles him again, he makes quick work of his shirt, tossing it somewhere near the headboard.

A thick scar runs half the length of Eddie’s bicep. He has no memory of how he got it, just that it happened when he was a kid. He’s always thought it a big, ugly thing, but Richie doesn’t seem to agree. Reverentially, he runs his thumb along the scar tissue before cradling Eddie’s jaw in his hands, pulling him into a kiss that tastes of snow blowing through an icy forest.

Eddie jerks back, eyes wide, cold blood rushing through his veins. It feels like flight or fight, and Eddie's more likely to flee.

"What's wrong?" Richie asks, blinking rapidly. He lifts a hand to his mouth, brows furrowed. "Bad breath?"

Eddie shakes his head, forcing himself to smile reassuringly even though he's still rattled. "Nothing."

“Uh huh,” Richie says skeptically, smoothing his thumb into the hollow of Eddie’s cheek.

“I’m fine, seriously.” Shaking off the cold, he takes hold of Richie’s elbow, pushing him back so he can tug that ratty t-shirt over his head. Richie’s staticky hair sticks up in all directions, and his glasses sit askew his nose. The cold in Eddie's veins is replaced with heat as his gaze slowly moves down Richie's body.

“Can you see me without these?” Eddie asks, touching the corner of the frames.

“No,” Richie says roughly, sucking in a sharp breath.

Eddie nods, then straightens them, leaving them on Richie’s face. He rubs a hand down Richie’s bare sternum, combing through his chest hair, pausing at the elastic of his boxers. “Do you have condoms?”

Richie’s breath shudders. “No.”

Eddie hums, heart thrumming away when he asks, “Do you want me to jerk you off?”

Richie nods and his mouth falls open when Eddie pulls down his boxers, exposing him to the air. Eddie looks for one long moment, one hand on his thigh, the other moving up to his hip, making sure there’s no danger of him falling off Eddie’s lap. His cock is as nice as the rest of him.

“You don’t—” Richie’s groan interrupts his next words.

Eddie gathers moisture near the tip, making sure his grip isn’t uncomfortably dry. He’s drunk on satisfaction knowing that he’s the source of the noises coming out of Richie’s mouth.

Richie bends over and kisses him rough, curling his hands over Eddie’s shoulders. Richie’s muscles are rigid, body tense under Eddie's hands, but he kisses like he doesn't need oxygen to breathe.

Eddie strokes him in long, sure movements. If he has time to stretch out the pleasure, it’s what he prefers for himself. Consistency drives him crazy.

He splays a hand across the small of Richie’s back, keeping his eyes open even as Richie’s close, watching the man who was his sexual awakening come apart on his lap.

“Eddie,” Richie croaks, his cheeks flushed pink, a warning in his tone.

Heat curls around his spine, fluttering like electric ribbons sinking into his skin. Richie’s eyes crack open, glazed and distant. With a hoarse voice, Eddie says, “Next time I want to fuck you.”

Richie comes with a groan all over Eddie’s hand. His spine is a taut line, and Eddie gently rubs his back as spasms vibrate through his muscles. He drops his forehead to Eddie’s, huffing hot breaths across his lips.

“Wow,” Richie rumbles, fingers digging into Eddie’s shoulders. “I think I’m about to have a heart attack.”

“What?” Eddie pulls away, looking up at Richie with concern. He seems dazed, but not like he’s having chest pain. “Are you joking?”

“Huh?” Richie’s attention focuses on Eddie’s mouth. He bends to steal a kiss, but before he can plant one, Eddie swats him on his bare thigh. “Ow!”

“Don’t ever fucking joke about angina.” Eddie turns his body, dumping Richie off him onto the bed.

He lands on his back with a bounce. Richie stares at him for a few long moments. His expression goes from confused to horny as shit in only a few seconds. “Fuck. You’re hot when you're mad. I wanna suck you off.”

“You don’t have condoms,” Eddie reminds him, moving to get up, but Richie grabs him by the waist, pulling him back down, a knee on either side of Richie’s thighs.

“I’ll let you jerk off on my face?”

“What a tempting proposition.” Eddie rolls his eyes. He’s still hard, but that’ll go away in a minute or two. Picking Richie’s discarded shirt from the bed, he wipes his soiled hand on the front. “I’ll pass. There will be no bodily fluids shared between us until...”

“Until?”

“...until you get some condoms...” Eddie trails off. He was about to suggest until they both get tested, but he’s only ever forgone condoms for past monogamous relationships, and only with people he’s dated for at least a few months. Not for whatever the hell just happened between him and Richie.

Richie sits up, tucking himself back in his boxers. He pushes his hair off his face, licking his red lips. They look sore and bruised. Eddie tears his eyes away. This is not helping him get any softer.

“You do realize since I can’t go out without you, that means we’ll have to buy them together?” Richie’s face goes white. “One time a pap caught Ziggy buying a pregnancy test at Duane Reade. He had to go on _ Good Morning America _ to explain that it was for his mom, the poor bastard. He was the butt of Oedipus jokes on  _ SNL  _ for weeks.” Richie sighs. “I mean, I could ask Paulo, but we don’t have that kind of relationship.”

Eddie groans, exasperated, rubbing a tired hand over his face.

Richie pets Eddie’s ass, all  _ there there, _ before digging his fingers in, making him sit down on Richie’s lap. “How about this: I jerk you off, and you come all over my chest? Then later, you could buy condoms and we could go down to the parking garage—”

“No sex in my car.” Eddie’s setting that hard and fast rule right now.

“—or you could come back here and I’ll make you forget your own name.” Richie leans back on one elbow, comfortably stretched out, the picture of indolence. He draws a circle around Eddie’s belly button with his pinky. “What do you say, buddy?”

He smiles up at him from behind his big, stupid glasses and slips a hand into Eddie's underwear. He takes Eddie in hand and leisurely pumps his cock, watching him all the while.

Eddie bites his bottom lip, and wraps his hand around Richie’s wrist, urging him to go faster. So maybe he doesn’t always like it slow. Sometimes fast is good when it's a little too much, a bit too far on the side of pain, but fuck it if Eddie isn’t having a good time.

Eddie bends over to tenderly kiss Richie, splaying a hand across his chest, feeling his heartbeat against his palm. He squeezes his eyes shut, overwhelmed and blissed out at once.

With a sigh, he comes all over Richie’s chest. Cracking his eyes open, Eddie gazes down at the man spread out underneath him. He’s beautiful like this: chest heaving, sweat collecting in the hollow of his throat, strands of hair stuck to his forehead, abdomen painted with Eddie’s release.

Richie’s mouth curves, triumphant. Dragging a finger lazily through the mess, Richie holds it up to the light. “Look at that, a white Christmas.”

Eddie makes a face that’s half disgust, half something else altogether. Richie yelps when Eddie pinches his thigh.

Later, Eddie stands under Richie’s shower, surrounded by the scent of his body wash. He cleans under his nails, scrubbing soap through the hair that trails down his belly to where he’s soft. If he closes his eyes, he can picture Richie scratching nails down the same path.

He stands in front of the bathroom mirror, water droplets cooling on his heated skin. It’s fogged, except from where he’s cleaned off the condensation. Eddie takes a deep breath, then another, fingers digging into the cold porcelain sink.

Exhaustion makes his arms feel like noodles, he can barely hold himself up. He’s so tired, he doesn’t notice Richie opening the bathroom door until cold air wraps around his bare ankles.

He watches Richie as he crowds him against the sink, hands fitting like puzzle pieces over his hips. His hair tickles Eddie’s shoulder as he kisses the back of his neck, stroking a hand under his chin so he turns it. Richie trails kisses along his jawline to his mouth.

His neck aches from the angle, but he pushes his hips back into the warm cradle of Richie’s. He doesn’t think he could get it up again, but he enjoys the closeness, how Richie boxes him in, and the way he looks at him in the mirror. It’s like he doesn’t know what to think about Eddie, like he’s a mystery that needs to be solved.

When Eddie leaves Richie’s apartment later that evening—innumerable things swirling through his head—he stops in front of the elevator.

An artistically distressed cabinet sits nearby There’s a table runner on the top, as well as a selection of dusty artificial plants. If he crouches in front of the cabinet, it affords a perfect view of Richie’s door. 

Eddie pulls a small camera from his pocket. He picked it up from their head technician that morning. She’s one of a few employees who actually gets reliable vacation days during the holidays, so Eddie had to drive up to the Bronx to fetch it from her apartment. Her grandmother made him stay for tea, which is why he ended up at Richie’s later than he would have preferred.

He unwinds the thin power cord. Locating a socket behind the cabinet, he plugs it in. It’s a simple device, the lens is small and discrete, the body black as night. Still, simplicity does not translate to uselessness. It comes with a SIM chip and a hefty data plan that constantly uploads footage to an encrypted cloud account. It’s not a cheap solution to Eddie’s problem, but right now it’s the best one.

There are no security cameras on the residential floors or the stairwells, so this is Eddie’s way of circumventing that problem.

Eddie tucks it into one of the plants, waving his hand in front of the camera. He waits a few minutes for the video to save. Pulling out his phone, he clicks on the file when it appears. Playing on the screen is a crystal-clear view of Richie’s front door and the hallway leading up to it. If someone leaves another mailer, there’s no way they won’t be caught on camera. He checks his wristwatch. The timestamp in the corner of the frame is correct.

Eddie calls the elevator. Smiling, he presses one of the marks Richie sucked into his neck, hidden professionally under his collar.

Sometimes, he really loves this job.


	9. New York, 2016

Eddie can trace how he ended up behind a pile of black cables, while stagehands scrambled around him, to the exact moment Richie batted his lashes and asked if Eddie wanted to watch him work. He couldn’t admit to Bev he’d stayed with Richie longer than needed, so she was under the impression that Eddie’s seeing a Broadway show in Midtown. He can’t believe she didn’t question it, and he can’t quite believe he agreed to this, either.

All he can say is that Richie knows how to get what he wants. Hell, if Richie had the inclination, he could convince Nixon’s ghost to donate to the ACLU. He has an impressive way with words for someone’s whose default outfit is a loud shirt thrown over a pair of khakis.

“How’s it going, you tall drink of kombucha?” A grinning Ziggy, dressed to impress in a pair of baggy pajama pants, strolls up to Eddie. He’s looking slightly redder than the last time Eddie saw him. He holds out a pink box in offering, as a strawberry Pocky hangs from the corner of his mouth.

Eddie folds his arms over his chest, but makes no move to take a Pocky stick. 

His eyes drift to Richie on set. He’s talking with Sibyl, the actress playing his wife. She and Richie get along swimmingly, which is surprising considering their characters are habitually passive aggressive the moment the camera starts rolling. But that’s acting, he supposes. 

Ziggy shakes the box. “The only drug in this is sugar, I swear.”

Eddie continues to ignore the offer. “How was Jamaica?”

“Hot. I got sunburned and the head of wardrobe yelled at me for like an hour. Now they’re writing some shit about my character going to a tanning salon because my forehead is peeling off in long strips and no amount of makeup can cover it up.”

The episode director approaches Richie, trailed by a grumpy man who looks like he eats puppies for breakfast.

“Who’s that?” Eddie asks. The man wasn’t around in the morning when Richie introduced Eddie to the rest of the crew.

“The linebacker with shit for brains?” Ziggy replies with a frown. “Ashford. He’s a producer from LA, the showrunner sent him to supervise rewrites.”

“Why is a linebacker producing?” The man looks big, mean, and so out of place in a suit and tie among a tribe of people in jeans and t-shirts.

Ziggy eyes him curiously. “Hoping to make bank before he's forced into retirement, I guess.”

“You don’t sound like a fan.”

Ziggy laughs. “What gave it away?”

Ziggy isn’t Ashford’s only critic. It seems there’s quite a bit of bad blood in this particular smoothie. Richie pointedly keeps the director between Ashford and him at all times, like an ineffective barrier. Ashford is big enough that he could toss aside the director if he were so inclined. Going by the way Ashford glares on, tapping his foot impatiently, he seems inclined.

A man in a baseball cap and headphones yells something that Eddie doesn’t quite catch. The group of actors break apart, and Richie moves to his cue. He catches Eddie’s eye and tosses him a wink.

“Anyways, why are you hanging out near our gaffer like a wallflower? No offence, Carlita,” Ziggy says to an absolute unit of a woman fiddling with a massive studio light. She smiles at Ziggy indulgently.

“Wallflower is literally in my job description,” Eddie says, distracted. He doesn’t like the way Ashford’s glaring at Richie.

Ziggy shakes his head and hauls him closer to set. “Rich brought you here for a reason, if he wants to show off, let him. He’s a talented guy, you know.”

Eddie huffs. “Funny, he said the same thing about you.”

Ziggy ducks his head, grinning. He pushes Eddie down onto one half of a cast iron patio set, out of place among the piles of equipment. They’re still a few feet from the set, yet the heat radiating from the massive lights illuminating Richie and his co-stars makes sweat bead on the back of Eddie’s neck.

Ziggy drops down in the other seat, putting a finger to his lips. Someone snaps the clapper, and the scene begins.

Richie jumps into the character, speaking with a slight Metropolitan accent that must have taken him an age to master. It reminds Eddie of cabbies wrangling fares from gig drivers, vendors hawking warm cups of joe on street corners, and beat cops walking their patrols. Richie has mastered the inflections, dropping his Rs in all the right places.

He moves from the couch beside Sibyl, to the attached kitchen. The camera follows him as he opens the fridge and pulls out a beer, taking a long swig.

From the corner of his eye, Eddie catches Ashford stomp up to a row of monitors where the director supervises the shots. He’s gesturing wildly at Richie, voice rising in volume. Now, Eddie does not know much about television production, but by the way the crew are glaring daggers at Ashford, he’s committing a hefty sin.

The director makes a sharp gesture across his throat. Richie sags against the kitchen counter, setting his beer down. Ashford makes an angry sound deep in his chest.

Eddie straightens in his seat, pushing his chair out from under the table.

“What the fuck, Tozier?” Ashford growls, storming onto the set. He rounds the kitchen island, boxing Richie in with steam pouring from his ears. “I told you, no improvising. She’s supposed to get the beer for you, not the other way around. Follow the goddamn script, this isn’t  _ Goodfellas _ , and you aren’t Joe fucking Pesci.”

Eddie’s on the set before he can think, grabbing Ashford’s bicep. He’s so massive, his hand doesn’t fit all the way around. Still, Eddie’s dealt with bigger and badder, and in his experience, they fall harder.

“I’ll ask you  _ once,” _ Eddie begins quietly. “Get away from him.” Ashford startles, eyes darting from his arm up to Eddie’s stony face. “I won’t ask twice, Mr. Ashford.”

Ashford’s cheeks go ruddy and his gaze narrows. He rips his arm out of Eddie’s grip. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Mr. Tozier’s protection.”

“Why would he need a fucking bodyguard?” A bead of sweat trails down the side of Ashford’s face. “We have security on the premises.”

“I'd be happy to discuss my credentials away from the set,” Eddie says pointedly, but Ashford does not take the offer.

“Sibyl and I talked about it,” Richie says quietly, squirming like a bug under a microscope. “It wouldn’t play well, y’know? Just further alienate the audience from the character.”

Ashford’s hands clench and unclench at his sides, itching for a fight. “It’s a fucking joke.”

“Gaslighting isn’t funny,” Sibyl pipes up, hovering at the edge of the kitchen. Eddie wills her to stay away. Ashford is a rubber band a spare second from snapping.

Richie nods. “It’s a serious issue, and we shouldn’t be playing it for laughs.”

Ashford advances, but Richie slides away, gaze flicking to Eddie. He’s pale as death, eyes so wide there’s a ring of white around his pupils. Richie backs up to keep the island between him and Ashford.

Eddie turns his attention back to Ashford, furious at the scene in front of him, because he knows exactly what it means. Breathing through his mouth, he practically tastes fire on his tongue. Eddie wedges himself between the two men. He pulls his shoulders back and lifts his chin. The message is clear; if Ashford wants to hurt Richie, he’ll have to go through Eddie first.

“Back. The. Fuck. Off,” Eddie says coldly. “You take one step closer to my client, and I will take you down.”

Eddie can think of at least five ways to lay Ashford out to dry without seriously injuring him, and dozens more that would require a hospital visit.

“I’d like to see you try—”

“Mr. Ashford, if you keep threatening my actors, I will call security,” the director calls out. “I don’t care that you’re paying our wages, this isn’t the goddamn NFL, man, get a grip. We’ve already discussed it, and I agree with the actors’ complaints. The scene did not fit with the character’s continuity—”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” Ashford growls. He glances around, as if searching for backup, but finds no one willing to meet his eye. He seems to realize he’s lost this fight, because he sneers.

Eddie bristles, practically begging for a reason to deck the prick, when he feels a hand on his elbow. Richie is so close. Maybe too close, considering how many people are around them. Still, Eddie cannot help the flutter of his heart when Richie straightens up, drawing strength from their contact. He steps out from behind Eddie.

“We all know you have a writing credit on this episode,” he says to Ashford. “You threw money at someone and they let you play out whatever fucked up domestic abuse shit floats around in your brain.”

“Fuck you, pussy.” Ashford points an unwavering finger at Richie’s face. “A real man wouldn’t pay another to fight his battles.”

Eddie gets in the way, blocking Ashford’s view. He’s happy to fight any and all physical battles. But with words? Richie has this one in the bag.

“Yeah, yeah,” Richie huffs, nails digging into Eddie’s elbow as he puts on a brave face. Eddie burns hot at their point of contact. Strobing stage lamps light a fuse in the pit of his stomach. “Run away to LA, and take your complaints to the showrunner, bitch.”

The cast and crew take an early lunch after Ashford storms off.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks, holding the door open to the dressing room as Richie flicks on the light. Racks of clothes occupy the space. A dressing table and mirror is mounted along the far wall, surrounded by vanity lights.

Richie goes over to the table, dropping down in one of the nearby stools. “If I get fired I’ll finally be free of this trainwreck.” Rubbing a hand over his face, he sighs. “Fuck.”

Eddie spins the stool towards him. Richie gives him a grateful look as he undoes the first few buttons of Richie’s shirt.

“Why did you agree to do this show if you hate it so much?” Eddie asks, opening Richie’s collar, fingers brushing along the line of his throat.

“Believe it or not, but it used to be good.” Richie plucks a few wet wipes from a container, swiping at the makeup on his face. "I picked the script off a pile this big.” He holds his hands a foot apart. “It was a coming-of-age sitcom. I wasn’t even the main character. I was just supposed to play Brona’s father.”

“Brona? The girl who sent you a Christmas card?”

“She’s so talented, Eddie, you don’t even know. She’s only been in indie films; festival stuff that doesn’t make enough money to get on big screens, but the reviews are something else.” Richie whistles. “Her parents moved to New York just so she could do the show. This was supposed to be her big break. Mine too, in a way. I scouted her for the role, and they were going to give me a production credit. Then the network fucked us over.”

“I’m so sorry, Richie,” Eddie says softly. He bends down and wraps his arms around Richie’s neck.

“It sucks because I actually cared about this project.” Richie buries his nose behind Eddie’s ear. “But the pilot was  _ too  _ family oriented, which means competing with  _ Modern Family _ , and according to the big shots, that’s a death sentence.” Richie sighs warm air across the back of Eddie's neck. “At this point, I’m sure I’m cursed. I never get the jobs I want, only the jobs people think I want. I ruined it for everyone.”

"That's not true."

“It is. Ashford’s only attached because he got wind of my involvement. He was a fan of this cursed, trash fire of a movie I did back in my twenties,  _ SuburBBQ. _ " Eddie makes a noise in the back of his throat. “I know, even the name is stupid. He figured he was doing me a favour by hiring new writers, firing Brona, and promoting me to lead billing. He was not pleased when I told him to go to fuck himself.”

Eddie pulls back in order to look at Richie better. He remembers the distance he tried to keep from Ashford. The fact that Richie stiffened like a board when he came near.

“Did he hurt you?” Eddie asks.

“Yeah. Like a year ago?” Richie shrugs, squeezing the used wipes into a ball. “Pushed me against a wall and choked the shit out of me.”

Eddie stares at Richie in horror. “You didn’t press charges,” he states.

Richie shakes his head, not quite meeting his eye. "Money buys lawyers, and lawyers make everything go away. The network does what it wants, fuck the consequences.” He sighs heavily and tosses the makeup wipes in the trash. “My character was supposed to be a loving father, but now he’s this unlikeable fuckface cheating on his wife with a woman half his age.”

Eddie's still stuck on the fact that Ashford put his hands on Richie. It's a loop running through his head: rage, worry, and tenderness. His brain keeps shorting out, he can't think of what he could possibly say.

If Richie had pursued an assault charge, it would have been included in his dossier. Eddie would have known about it. Faintly, he says, “I wish you told me earlier.”

Richie slides a hand over his hip. "They made me sign an NDA, Eddie. Paid me a shitload of money to forget about it. So I took their blood money and set up a trust for Brona, it's the least I could do after she uprooted her life for a missed opportunity. It's more than enough to put her through acting school, if that's what she wants."

Eddie nods, digests the new information. "If he comes near you again, I will beat the shit out of him,” he swears.

"Eddie?" Richie says softly.

"Or kick him in the balls. Repeatedly." Eddie ducks his head and cups Richie's chin, rubbing his thumb along the bristles on his jaw. "Getting kicked in the balls hurts like a bitch, but the pain doesn’t last very long…” He pauses, pensive. “If I break his nose, he'll remember it every time he looks in the mirror and sees two black eyes staring back—"

He's cut off when Richie grabs his tie and pulls him into a furious, open-mouthed kiss. Eddie gives as good as he gets, biting Richie's bottom lip.

The door opens, giving them barely enough time to pull their heads apart, but not enough to untangle their limbs.

"Oh.” Ziggy stands in the doorway, mouth hanging open comically. “I did not see that coming."

Richie jerks back, nearly falling off the chair. "Ziggy," he starts, voice pleading.

"I mean, I expected it from you, Edward, you dog.”

“Excuse me?” Eddie says, offended. “Close the door!”

Ziggy steps into the room, closing the door behind him as casual as can be. He lifts a finger and points it at the lock, which he turns as though he’s giving them a helpful lesson.

“Ziggy—” Eddie says impatiently.

“What? C’mon, man, the way you look at him? It's not subtle, but I didn’t think it was reciprocated." He holds his hands up to Richie, like he’s trying to calm a bucking horse. Richie looks like he's on the verge of a heart attack. "Your secret’s safe with me, dude. Not that it needs to be secret—I mean, who hasn't had gay thoughts? I used to get off thinking about my high school gym teacher all the time. Heck, I’ve jerked off my non-binary best friend on multiple occasions. Also—you know what was hot? That scene where you yelled at my character—”

Richie covers his face, groaning like he's in pain, and Eddie cannot blame him. He remembers being twenty and horny all the damn time. Still, every word that comes out of Ziggy's mouth feels like a kick in the teeth.

“Now we don't have time to get into all my masturbatory fantasies.” Ziggy waves his hand, rolling his eyes. “Just know that I think you're super cool, Rich, and I'm never gonna tell anyone, cross my heart, hope to die.”

“Thanks,” Richie says through the gaps in his fingers. His ears are tomato red. “Kindly fuck off.”

“I got your back, bro. Oh, and we're needed on set for our scene in ten. Don’t worry about Ashford, he fucked off back to the sewer he crawled from.” He turns for the door and Eddie sighs in relief, but then Ziggy spins back. “Hey, can you pass me my bronzer? I’m in need of a major glow up, Carlita says I look like a boiled lobster.”

Richie picks a bottle off the vanity and flings it at Ziggy’s head.

Eddie’s chopping carrots, sourced from a box of freshly delivered groceries, when Richie sneaks up behind him, slipping his hands into his pants pockets.

“Damn, these are tight,” he complains into Eddie’s ear. “How do you bend over?”

Eddie huffs, setting down the knife. “Should I demonstrate?” He moves Richie aside so he can grab a wok from the cabinet under the sink, bending right in half for Richie’s viewing pleasure.

He’d like to thank the office gym for keeping him in shape, despite his paper pushing tendencies. But really, he only has his strict workout regimen to thank for the appreciative look Richie gives him as he rises, wok in hand.

“What’s your poison?” Eddie gestures to the array of sauces on the counter.

“You pick, just don’t burn my ass off, I can barely handle a jalapeno.” Richie leans against the counter, snatching an honest to god CapriSun from the grocery box. He sucks at the straw, all too happy to watch Eddie cook.

“Those will rot your teeth,” Eddie says, firing up the wok, splashing in a conservative amount of oil, before dumping in the aromatics. The chicken follows a minute later.

Richie grins. “Would you kiss me if I didn’t have any teeth?”

“No,” Eddie says shortly. “I only like you because you have a full set.” Once the chicken is just shy of cooking through, he adds the veggies to the pot. Water hisses and splats, but he puts himself between the stove and Richie, and the apron ends up with a few grease spots.

“You shallow bitch, Eduardo,” Richie says, faking offence. “Way to knock down my ego a few pegs.” He slaps Eddie’s ass on the way to the crockery cupboard, grabbing two plates.

They forgo the dining table for the breakfast bar, and finally Eddie brings up the question that’s been bothering him since the incident in the dressing room.

“So, Ziggy?”

Richie stabs a piece of chicken, bringing it up to his mouth. “What about him?”

“I don’t know, you tell me,” Eddie says, sipping from his water glass. “Will I have to take him out to Poughkeepsie?”

Richie stares at him. “You would do that? For me?”

Eddie pretends to think it over, but Richie pokes his arm, ending the charade.

“I doubt he’ll tell anyone.” Richie shrugs stiffly. “He’s a gossip, but he keeps his promises.” He draws a circle with his pinkie on the counter, chewing on his bottom lip.

“Have you thought about coming out?” Eddie asks.

To his surprise Richie doesn’t instantly shut down. He pauses, fiddling with his butter knife, and seems to seriously consider Eddie’s suggestion.

“It's a difficult decision,” Eddie offers. “Fuck knows it was for me. And I'm not in your position, I’m not a celebrity.”

Richie will never enjoy the same amount of privacy that Eddie does.

“I’m scared,” Richie says, shoving a forkful of stir fry into his mouth. “I’m always so fucking scared. I'm constantly five seconds away from a total mental breakdown. I’ve internalized so much bullshit—” He clenches his jaw. “I can’t even wear bow ties because my dad once said they looked fruity? Imagine that. Bow ties, fruity? What about the goddamn cravat? Of all fruity neck adornment, the cravat has gotta be the fruitiest!”

“Please stop saying ‘fruity,’ Eddie begs. “I keep picturing you in a tutti frutti hat.”

“Eddie, you asshole.” Richie lets out a little laugh, cracking a smile. He looks at Eddie fondly. “See, this is why I like you. You can always make me laugh.”

“I try my best,” he says with a wry smile. Dropping his hand on top of Richie’s, he strokes his thumb over the hills and valleys of his knuckles. “I guess your parents don’t know.”

“That I’m gay? No they didn’t. They barely tolerated my comedy.” He lets out a heavy sigh. “You know how all Catholics are morbidly obsessed with death?”

“Sure?”

“It’s all ‘you’d better be good or you’re going straight to hell when you die!’ Like why not focus on the now, instead of worrying about what comes after? That’s how you get ulcers. My dad had them his entire life, and he’s probably still got them wherever he is now.”

“Did you ever consider telling them? When I told Frida—my mom,” Eddie clarifies, “I was so scared. She grew up in a conservative town. I knew she would never hate me for it, but I didn’t think she’d accept my sexuality so easily.” He smiles down at the counter. “She surprised me.”

Richie shakes his head. “It never crossed my mind. We weren’t close. When I moved out, I never went back to see them, and they never asked me to.” Richie huffs. “When my dad died, my mom forgot to tell me until weeks after the funeral.”

“Damn.”

“I was so alone, growing up,” Richie says, “It all seems like a blur to me. I guess it’s why being alone in LA didn’t bother me so much. I have friends, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not the people you spill your guts to when the going gets tough.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, heart aching.

“LA’s just full of monsters, Eddie, you don’t even know. Some people just wanna see the world burn. Hell, they probably get off on it.” His mouth curls into something that is more grimace than smile. “It’s tough to get used to.”

“You shouldn’t have to.” Eddie squeezes Richie’s hand. “Whatever you need, I’m here for you.”

“You have to say that,” Richie jokes. “Steve’s paying you to.”

Eddie grabs Richie’s collar, yanking him in for a firm kiss. He pulls back. “Mr. Covall is not paying me to give a fuck about you. And yet, I do.”

Richie ducks his head, shaking his head. “You’re a goddamn OSHA violation.”

Eddie smirks. “Hmm, I don’t think fucking you is covered under OSHA.” He presses his lips to Richie’s cheek, trailing them along his cheekbone to his ear. “But I am breaking so many rules in my company’s interpersonal handbook, and I helped write the thing.”

“Well you’re the boss, right? You can do whatever you want?”

Eddie nods, continuing to suppress any misgivings he has about the situation they’re in. He pulls back to finish eating dinner, and chuckles when he sees he’s left Richie looking like a hurricane blew through the kitchen.

Later, as Eddie’s loading the dishwasher, Richie comes up behind him, tugging at the string of his apron until the knot comes undone.

Eddie grins. Wordlessly, he lets Richie pull it over his head, tossing it to the side. Eddie shuts the dishwasher just as Richie takes him by the elbow to turn him around. He kisses him, and Eddie hums into it as happiness soaks into his skin. Quick as a whistle, Richie undos his tie, tossing it after the apron, making quick work of the buttons on his shirt.

“Did you buy condoms?” Richie asks, pressing his lips to Eddie’s neck.

Eddie did in fact buy condoms, and they're sitting in a small box in the breast pocket of his jacket, which in turn is lying in its usual place on the couch. He didn't want to be too presumptuous by leaving them in Richie's bedside drawer, but he also didn't want to bring them up out of nowhere.

Going from the way Richie’s looking at him, it seems he wanted Eddie to be a little presumptuous. He has to close his eyes because that look makes him shiver.

“Yes.” He points at his jacket.

Cold air brushes against his bare skin as Richie leaves, only to return a moment later.

“Good, you didn’t get the numbing ones.” Eddie cracks his eyes open and finds Richie nodding sagely as he fishes a rubber out of the box. “Sometimes that shit gets on the outside, and it’s like getting a shot of botox to the lips.”

Eddie chokes on a laugh that turns into a moan when Richie removes his belt, helping him kick off his pants and underwear. Heat curls around his spine. He leans back, head thumping against the cabinet. He relishes in the long stretch of his body, and how Richie runs the flats of his hands down his torso to his hips.

Richie’s cheeks have gone pink, but the tips of his ears are bright red. His eyes are so intense as he looks Eddie over, soaking him up. He slips between Eddie’s legs, crouching at his feet, and Eddie laughs when stubble scratches his stomach, then his thighs.

Richie rolls the condom down on him, and dives right in. He uses lots of tongue, trying to take him deeper. He grips him where his mouth can’t reach, and uses his free hand to touch Eddie’s bare skin; his stomach, his thighs, his ass, like he can’t get enough. Eddie can feel Richie in his bones. 

“Are you enjoying this?” Richie pulls off after some time to look up at him, tear tracks streaking down his face.

A vicious tenderness tugs at Eddie’s heart. He nods, skin burning. He touches Richie’s face, thumb brushing his bottom lip. Richie takes the opportunity to kiss the pad.

“Awesome, because this does not taste good.”

Eddie huffs a breathless laugh. “I’ll get you the flavoured ones next time.”

Richie’s hand works at his length as he laps at the head. “Do you take requests? I’m partial to bubble gum.”

Eddie groans, sinking his fingers into Richie’s hair, his toes curling. “Yes,” he hisses as he comes, vision going white for what feels like an eternity. He returns to earth to the sight of Richie wiping his mouth free of the taste of latex.

"Stay over tonight." He kisses above Eddie's right knee, then the left, licking all the way up his thigh.

Eddie swallows.

"Say yes."

As if he could refuse.

"Okay, I will. Yes." 

Richie grins. “I left a toothbrush for you in the bathroom."

“Presumptuous,” Eddie accuses as Richie disposes of the condom.

Richie picks the box off the counter and raises a brow, pressing a hand to the front of his slacks where he's still visibly interested. "I presume I’ll see you in the bedroom?" 

Eddie pushes at his shoulder with a laugh, and Richie flounces off down the hall.

Eddie sags against the counter, trying to catch his breath. He hasn’t slept away from his apartment in at least a year, and dozing off in his office does not count. He may be riding high, all synapses firing at once, but he still has responsibilities.

The text he fires off to Bev is short and succinct. He lets her know that he’s out, and that he won’t be coming home tonight. Then, he jogs off after Richie. Considering his sad state of personal affairs, and the fact that he never goes more than twelve hours without communicating with Bev in some way, it’s no surprise that his phone starts ringing while he’s lying in bed with Richie, lazily making out.

Neither of them appreciate the interruption.

Eddie groans, dropping his head to Richie’s shoulder. Richie combs fingers through his hair, reaching to the nightstand with the other. Gratefully, Eddie takes the phone, pressing a final kiss to his neck before picking it up with a rough, “Bev?”

_ “How was the show?” _ she asks, faint music playing through her end. He can picture her curled up on the couch with a glass of merlot, watching TV.

“Huh?” Eddie asks, sitting up against the headboard, the sheets draped modestly over his lap.

Richie is something else altogether. He kicks off his sheets and relaxes on his side, bare as a spring morning, letting Eddie know exactly what he’s missing. It doesn’t help that he poses like a pinup, pinkie at the corner of his mouth as he bats his lashes. Eddie flips him the bird.

_ “The Broadway show,” _ Bev says, and Eddie suddenly remembers the fib he told her that morning. Shit, he hopes she doesn’t ask for details.  _ “What did you see?” _

Oh fuck.

“Uh, what show  _ did _ I see?” The only musical he knows for sure is currently running is  _ Hamilton, _ but he doesn’t know anything about it except that it’s maybe an alternate history musical where the founding fathers were all diverse people of colour. Fuck. He’s so screwed.

_ “Eddie?” _

_ “Hamilton,” _ Eddie croaks out, only for Richie to shake his head like a woodpecker, staring at Eddie with what looks like pity.

_ “Hamilton,”  _ Bev repeats in her infamous take no bullshit tone.  _ “You got a ticket to Hamilton? Did you sell a kidney? How the fuck did you manage that, it’s been sold out for months!” _ Eddie pulls the phone away from his ear, wincing at Bev’s shrieking.

Richie touches his leg. Panicked, Eddie looks down at him, putting his hand over the receiver. “Tell her I got you tickets,” Richie whispers.

“R—” he clears his throat. “Right, Mr. Tozier got me the tickets.”

_ “Tickets. Plural?” _ Bev squeaks.  _ “You bitch! Whose ass are you tapping that you’ve taken him to see Hamilton instead of me? Orange coat guy? You owe me so many details!” _

Richie rolls over on the bed, smacking his bare ass. Eddie rolls his eyes.

_ “What was that?” _ Bev asks.  _ “Are you with him right now? Gross, Eds. You sap. I hope he's worth it.” _

Eddie meets Richie’s gaze, a saccharine smile tugging on his lips. “He is.”


	10. New York, 2016

On his next day off, Richie asks if they could go ice skating. Well, not so much ask as make an executive decision.

It’s not a bad day for outdoor activity: the wind is nonexistent, and the sun is shining. All in all, it’s perfect weather for skating. If only either of them knew how to skate.

Bryant Park is crowded, but not as cramped as it could be. The tourists generally favour the two rinks in Central Park, or the overpriced Rockefeller Centre. Bryant Park is for locals.

A quarter of the rink is sectioned off for a children’s hockey game. The kids skate backwards and sideways, dodging around each other, all the while whacking sticks.

Richie and Eddie barely move more than a few feet from the boards.

“I thought it would be like riding a bike,” Richie says, his legs sliding dangerously further and further apart. Eddie grabs him by the waist, steadying him. Richie shoots him a grateful smile.

“Want to try going around?” Eddie asks, bravely venturing forth on his rented skates, only to get clipped by a teenager whizzing by, an apology shouted over her shoulder.

“Was this a bad idea? I’m starting to think this was a bad idea,” Richie says, arms pinwheeling, despite the fact that he isn’t moving his legs. “I have some vague memories of sliding around on some frozen lake in the woods when I was a kid, but man, I don’t think it was this difficult.”

“How about you hold onto my arm?” Eddie suggests, hanging onto the boards for dear life. “And I’ll take you around. I promise to catch you if you fall.”

“You’re my knight in shining armor.” Richie grabs his elbow, hugging it to his chest. His legs are shakier than a newborn giraffe, but somehow, and after a very long time, they make it to the other side of the rink, collapsing onto the boards.

Richie leans back, blinking up at the sky, chest heaving, while Eddie drops his head to his arms, exhausted. His thighs are on fire. This is a tougher workout than straight up running on a treadmill. He should do this more often.

“Hello, Eddie,” a horribly familiar voice says.

Eddie looks up to find Bev smiling at him.

There’s something to be said about the way Bev smiles when she’s not actually smiling. The corners of her lips lift, but her eyes stay as stoney as ever. He’s seen it used on anyone from terrible clients, to shitty men at bars trying her patience. But it’s rarely directed at him. In so many ways she reminds him of a lion stalking her prey.

“Beverly,” Eddie croaks out, glancing at Richie out of the corner of his eye. He’s watching them curiously and with some apprehension. “What are you doing here?”

“I saw you from the observation deck, thought I’d come down and say hi.” She points up to the pavilion. A woman sits at a table by the window. She waves when she notices Bev pointing.

“Is that Kay?” Eddie asks weakly. “How is she?”

Kay is Bev's oldest friend. They met at a sewing class in their twenties, and immediately hit it off. Nowadays, Kay’s the creative director for a handbag company. Success looks good on her, and so does her fur coat. 

“Her divorce went through,” Bev’s eyes flash. “She took the bastard for everything he’s worth.”

“Good for her,” Eddie says.

“Lily is in the league.” Bev points to one of the girls playing hockey. That’s Kay’s daughter alright; dressed from head to toe in hot pink, her teeth are bared at a quivering boy twice her size as she rhythmically thumps her stick on the ice. Vicious to the bone at only twelve years old. Lily’s grown since he last saw her, a few inches at least.

“I read about their divorce in the rags,” Richie pipes up. “She’s gorgeous, and he cheated on  _ her?” _ Richie illustrates his point by drawing an hourglass figure with his hands, shaking his head. “I think he deserves to lose a few million.”

Eddie turns his head to look at Bev. He fully expects her patented death smile to be ramped up a few thousand degrees, but she’s smiling normally, eyes crinkling like Richie didn’t just objectify her friend.

“Oh, she’ll like you,” Bev says, holding out her hand. Richie shakes it. “Beverly Marsh. You must be Richie Tozier. I like your coat. It’s  _ very _ orange.”

Eddie freezes, staring in horror at said orange coat. The same orange coat Bev helped him pick out. The very one that was left on the couch like a big, puffy piece of evidence while Richie slept in his room.

Oh god, Bev  _ knows. _

“Eddie’s told me so much about you,” Richie says, evidently not reading the panic leaking from Eddie’s everything. “He never mentioned that you’re a total bombshell.”

Bev laughs. “I can take you down in one second flat, want to try that again?”

Richie clutches his hands to his chest, eyes wide. “A woman after my own heart.”

“Aunty Bev! Aunty Bev!” Lily skates to a stop a bare inch from running them over, showering their legs in a mist of shaved ice. “Did you see? I scored three goals on Tommy,” she sticks her tongue out at a glum-looking kid who storms off in a huff.

Bev pats Lily’s head. “I did, good job!”

“Hi, Eddie,” Lily says, glancing past him to gawk at Richie. “Whoa, you were on Jimmy Kimmel! But you complained a whole lot about your girlfriend.” Richie’s smile dims a few watts. “You shouldn’t be bothered by her taking time to get ready in the morning.” She looks Richie up and down with a frown. “Especially not when you look like that.”

Richie winces. “Yikes, roasted by an eight year old.”

“I’m twelve, asshole.”

Richie nods, and his feet slide out from under him. He grabs onto the boards, holding on for dear life. “I suppose I deserve that. You’re right. Women work hard and we shouldn’t put them down for it.”

Lily makes a considering sound, like she’s seeing Richie in a new light. “Huh, you’re not that bad, still terrible at skating, though. Want some pointers?”

Richie grins. “Please.”

Grabbing Richie by the hand, she pulls him a few feet away to an area with fewer skaters, where she demonstrates holding onto the board and pushing out with her legs. Richie shakily copies her, studiously paying attention to her every word.

“Girlfriend?” Bev grimaces, probably thinking she has to worry about Eddie being a homewrecker on top of everything else. 

Eddie shakes his head, bracing himself.

“So you’re fucking our client,” Bev says, the words sounding so much bigger and worse the moment they’re released into the world.

“Yeah,” Eddie admits. Like ripping off a bandaid.

“You need to stop,” she says, touching his elbow. “But you won’t.”

He nods. No use in lying to her anymore.

“Anyone else, and I’d think they were acting with their dick. But you really like him, don’t you?”

He nods again. “I fucking daydream about that gangly bastard until I can’t get any of my paperwork done.” Eddie rubs a hand over his tired face. “It doesn’t make any sense, but it feels like I’ve known him my entire life. He’s… he’s all I can think about.”

She looks at him almost pityingly. “This is a terrible idea, Eds, you must know that. You should hand him over to one of our employees, or we should cut our losses and get the fuck out.”

“I know,” he says, pained. “But I can’t.”

“Even though you’re putting him in danger? You’re supposed to protect him, not be his fucking boyfriend.”

“I won’t let anything happen to him,” Eddie says with such stern finality, he surprises himself. “I’ll keep him safe.”

She shakes her head. “If he was a regular client, you wouldn’t have let him leave with Lily. You’re compromised.” 

He watches as Lily shows Richie how to balance on one leg, kicking out with the other. Richie copies her, gliding across the ice, a wondrous smile on his face. Eddie recognizes the truth in her statement, he’s not treating Richie like a client in so many ways.

“Probably,” Eddie says.

Bev waits for him to continue, and when he doesn’t, she sighs. “You’ll be the death of me, I know it.” She nudges his shoulder with her own as they watch a tiny girl a third of Richie’s size teach him how to skate.

Minutes go by, and the tension settles ever so slightly. Eventually, Bev breaks the lingering silence. “Did you send a sample to the lab?”

Surprised, Eddie frowns. “I did. They cc'd you in the email?” He pulls out his BlackBerry. An email was delivered to his inbox two hours ago.

He should have known. Even though he paid for the tests out of pocket, Black Arrow is the Bev and Eddie show. 

“Yup.” She pops the ‘p.’ “Lab work is expensive, Eds. And you didn’t charge him.”

He purses his lips, ignoring the clear judgement in her tone. “Did you read it?”

“I skimmed. My curiosity knows no bounds.” She shakes her head. “The results were inconclusive, genetic markers are too far off. There are thousands of possible matches.”

“Damn.” Eddie drums his fingers on the board.

Richie skates over with Lily, still wobbly but doing better than before. "Excuse me, tens, a five is speaking."

Belatedly, Eddie notices blood dripping from Richie’s nose, and his heart just about drops into his stomach.

Richie must read the horror on his face, because he lifts his hands like he’s speaking to a wild animal. “Don’t panic.”

Eddie reaches out, fingers hovering inches away from Richie’s face. “What the f—” He glances down at Lily. “—udge happened? I took my eyes off you for one second.”

“He tried to twirl,” Lily pipes up. “But he tripped and face planted into the side of the boards. Noob.”

“It’s not broken,” Richie adds, accepting a raggedy napkin from Bev, holding it to his bleeding nose. Eddie makes a face, but when Richie pulls the napkin away, no more blood comes out.

“No shit,” Lily says. “If it were broken you’d be shrieking your head off—Mommy!” Lily screams abruptly, taking off in a run across the ice, right into Kay’s arms. To Kay’s credit, she doesn’t stumble back, not an inch. She waves at them, then holds her daughter’s hand as they join the circle of people skating around the rink’s circumference.

“You guys should see me now,” Richie says, striking a pose. Swirling his hips, he draws a weak squiggle on the ice with his skates. “I’m practically Kristi Yamaguchi.”

“Uh huh,” Eddie says with some apprehension. “I hope you realize you’re not wearing a helmet.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a hard skull.” Richie knocks on his head. “You should join me, Lily taught me a trick to stay on my feet.” He holds his hand out flat for Eddie, but then his eyes flick over to Bev. He drops his hand back down.

“I’ll sit this one out.” Eddie says, thinking of the lab report he needs to read. There’s an outdoor food vendor on the north side of the rink. He can grab a coffee and a patio table. Still, he doesn’t want to leave Richie alone while he’s distracted...

“We’re the same shoe size, aren’t we?” Bev punches Eddie’s shoulder. “Give me your skates,” Bev says. “I’ll join you, Mr. Tozier.”

“Please. It’s Richie.”

“I’m sure it is, Mr. Tozier,” Bev says with a sunny smile.

Eddie frowns at their antics, but he goes to fetch his shoes from the locker. He gives the skates over to Bev and trades them for her boots. She’s quick to lace them up, and even quicker to skate circles around Richie, who looks absolutely delighted by her presence. Eddie watches them for a bit, before going back to the locker to stash Bev’s boots.

He buys a steaming cappuccino from the vendor, and locates an empty patio table with an unobstructed view rink-side. Bev’s skating backwards, holding on to Richie’s hands as she tugs him along, a giant grin on her face. Nice to know Eddie’s not the only one falling for Richie’s particular brand of charm.

He opens the report and gets to reading.

Bev was right. The lab didn’t find any close relatives in their database, but they did find both x and y chromosomes in the DNA sample, meaning that Richie’s stalker is biologically male. They have a gene that prevents melanocyte cells from making dark pigments, so there’s a ninety-five percent possibility that they have red hair.

He takes a sip of his drink, then glances at the other tables. Not a single person has red hair. It's a sea of brunettes and blondes as far as the eye can see. Eddie shakes his head, laughing to himself. Paranoid, much?

Interestingly, the lab found a mutation in the stalker’s HTT gene. Eddie raises his eyebrows. Frida’s situation has him reading up on various neurological disorders. He knows—without having to look at the next paragraph—that Richie’s stalker has Huntington’s. Any mutations in one or both HTT genes lead to the disorder. If they’re young, they probably don’t know that they have it. Most people won’t know until they start showing symptoms, or get their DNA tested.

Huntington’s can decline into dementia as brain cells die. Eddie wonders if that has anything to do with why they’re harassing Richie. Except... Richie’s stalker is an architect. It takes careful planning to execute what they’ve done: the stalking, the pictures that tabloids could only dream of, the mailers delivered in such a way to avoid security cameras. No, they’re still young. Younger than forty, if they’re not showing symptoms.

On the rink, Bev teaches Richie how to skate backwards, moving her hips side to side, clapping when Richie does the same.

Eddie closes his eyes and listens to the sound of the wind as it blows over a flat sheet of ice. It’s the sound glass makes when he swirls his finger around the rim of his coffee cup. The wind comes from the trees, blowing flakes of snow down from the canopy. Someone far away is calling his name.

Eddie opens his eyes. A man leans on his elbows over the side of the rink, dressed in nothing by high-waisted slacks and a white shirt, despite the cold weather. The cut of the shirt is strange. Stiff, like it’s starched, tucked into slacks. Something old and out of time.

But what really catches Eddie’s attention is the red hair curling at the base of the man’s neck, barely brushing his collar. His head moves ever so slightly from side to side. He could be watching any number of people on the rink, but Eddie gets the feeling that he’s watching Richie.

Shaking, Eddie rises from his seat. He tries to avoid making any noise, walking on the balls of his feet to muffle his tread. He approaches as though his target is a doe; elusive and easily spooked. He hasn’t seen Eddie yet, his back is to him. All he can make out is that red hair and an eerily still back. Humans are never so still. They breathe; in and out. Eddie wonders if the man is breathing at all. If it weren't for the movements of his head, Eddie might think he was a statue.

With cold blood pumping through his veins, Eddie creeps closer. If he could just see his face, he’d know what to look for. Just one tiny look, and he can keep Richie safe.

Someone laughs, loud, distracting, breaking the spell. A large group passes in front of Eddie in a wave, blocking his view of the man. A few of them stare at Eddie curiously.

He pushes past the last of the stragglers, and finds an empty stretch of boards.

The man is gone.

There’s a mailer laying on Richie’s doorstep. Eddie sees it the moment they step out of the elevator. Richie is too distracted, describing how much he adores Bev, to notice what brings Eddie to a slow stop.

“And then she called my movies brain-melting trash—” Richie enthuses, delight brightening his features. He looks at Eddie, who’s stopped. He touches Eddie’s elbow. “What is it?”

For one moment, Eddie considers snatching the mailer up, and hiding it in his coat. But protecting Richie from hard truths is not in his job description.

Eddie’s compromised over his feelings for Richie; feelings that he should be able to control. Richie’s compromised over a situation far out of his hands, something innate to him. To use his sexuality as blackmail is sacrosanct. But the world is full of cruel people, and cruel people don’t give a fuck about others.

Eddie walks over to the mailer and picks it up. Grimly, he says, "You have mail."

“I…” Richie stares at the mailer and all the blood drains from his face. He looks from it to Eddie, then away. His shame is written in the lines of his face and in the slump of his shoulders.

“Hey.” Eddie holds a comforting hand to Richie’s neck. “Everything is going to be fine. I’ll take care of you.”

Richie covers Eddie’s hand. “I know.”

Once inside, Eddie makes them both mugs of hot cocoa. Richie waits on the couch, head hanging, elbows braced on his spread knees. He hides his face behind a mop of hair.

The mailer sits on the breakfast bar, halfway between the two of them, a shard of metal between two magnets. It’s the heaviest thing in the room.

Eddie tucks the mailer under his arm as he brings the mugs over. Poking Richie’s instep with his toe to get his attention, Eddie hands him a mug. He drops down on the couch next to Richie, their thighs touching.

They both take a single sip before setting the mugs down on the coffee table beside the book on coinage. A few loose pages poke from the book; a casualty of the first time they had sex.

“You ready?” Eddie asks, holding up the mailer. While in the kitchen, he examined it for wires and chemical triggers, but was unable to feel anything but several pieces of heavyweight paper, roughly the same size as a standard 4R print.

“Can we… can we just not?” Richie asks tentatively. “If it’s just gonna be the same bullshit over and over, when does it end?”

Eddie shakes his head. “I can’t do that. What if this one has instructions? Or a clue?”

Richie sighs and nods, waving at Eddie to go ahead. 

Eddie slips his pinkie under the flap, tearing the seal. Eddie pulls the pictures out, one by one.

At first, he doesn’t see anything different than the normal horrible breach of Richie’s privacy. Maybe it’s his mind not letting him process what he’s seeing—or perhaps it just takes him an extra second because he’s never seen himself at these angles before. 

But it’s unmistakable. Across the coffee table he’s spread three intimate photos of him and Richie, entwined on the bed just down the hall.

“Holy fucking shit,” Richie says.

Eddie stares at the naked expressions frozen on their faces, their raw, unclothed bodies, and he thinks he finally understands violation. This wasn’t a moment meant for anyone else.

Richie touches his forearm, but he can barely feel him over the frost prickling his skin. The pictures are only a facsimile made of ink and paper, but looking at them is like being flayed alive.

“Eddie?” Richie’s hand runs down the side of his face, forcing him to turn away from the pictures. Still, they’re frozen on the backs of his eyelids. They’re all he can see when he blinks. “Please, Eds, talk to me.”

“Don’t call me Eds,” he chokes, a frog caught in his throat. “Fucking... only Bev calls me that, I hate it.”

“You call her ‘Bev,’ and you have a problem with ‘Eds?’” Richie rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes, moisture clinging to his cheeks.

“You’re crying,” Eddie states, taking hold of Richie’s wrists, pulling them to his lap. The pictures flutter to the floor, but Eddie can’t focus on them, not when Richie’s in distress. “Please don’t cry.”

“This is my fault,” Richie says furiously, eyes wet.

“No,” Eddie says firmly, squeezing Richie’s wrists so he understands. “No,” he repeats.

He can’t fall apart now, no matter how much he’s affected. He’s still Richie’s protection, he needs to do his job.

Eddie picks up one of the photographs. Looking beyond the images, he searches for clues. A red piece of fabric lies crumpled on the floor next to the bed. Eddie can remember Richie wearing that shirt two weeks ago. It’s been draped over the side of the hamper since, despite Richie having a machine and dryer in his suite. Eddie counts back, cataloguing Richie’s outfits. Ten days ago, that’s when the photos were taken.

He explains this to Richie, who looks at him with little comprehension. To be fair, Eddie didn’t tell him about the camera he planted outside his front door.

“Come with me,” Eddie says, folding his hand with Richie’s, pulling him to his feet. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“Oh,” Richie says, as he’s tugged willingly down the hallway. “I always wanted to be a detective. Wait, actually, I just wanted to wear the cool hat. Maybe smoke a pipe like Sherlock Holmes? Not the solving crimes part.”

“Smoking’s bad for you. And think about it this way,” Eddie says, peeking into Richie’s bedroom. He holds up the picture. It was taken from the right side of the bed. “We’re searching for the punchline.”

Richie stands awkwardly in the centre of the room, arms folded over his chest as he looks around nervously. “You don’t know how comedy works, do you?”

“I’m a funny guy,” Eddie smiles, making Richie smile back, weak as it is. “You said it yourself, I can make you laugh.”

Richie sits on the corner of the bed, palms skimming down the covers. “I did say that.”

Frowning, Eddie holds the picture up higher, far above his eyeline. He makes a quick decision, and climbs onto the dresser.

“What are you doing?” Richie says.

“Trying to find the right angle— _ there _ . It was taken from here.” Eddie turns his head, and comes face to face with a vent. Pulling his keys from his pocket, he wedges one under the metal cover. It squeaks horribly, but falls with a resounding clack. Eddie turns on the flashlight attached to his keychain.

“Eddie?”

Nothing but an empty vent stares back at him, warm air blowing from within. The duct is barely as tall as his hand. Nothing could have come from the other side. There are too many twists and turns in an apartment system to run a borescope through.

He blinks against the onslaught of air, bending to retrieve the cover, he examines it for bugs, but finds nothing.

“That’s weird,” Eddie mutters. He slips the cover back over the duct, whacking it with his fist on all four corners so it stays in place. He climbs down from the dresser, returning his keys to his pocket.

Whoever they are, they’ve accessed Richie’s apartment on at least two separate occasions, once to install bugs, and then to remove them. 

Suppressing the shiver threatening to run down his spine, he pulls out his phone instead. “I’m calling a locksmith.”

“Please,” Richie says, his voice shaking.

While they wait for Giancarlo to arrive, Eddie shows Richie how to comb through every inch of his apartment for surveillance materials. Ironically, the minimalist design makes it easier to run his hands over the few scattered paintings and the single statement houseplant in the living room. He opens and thoroughly examines each and every vent, while Richie goes through his closet, eventually doing a load of laundry.

The dryer dings just as the buzzer rings, and Eddie picks up the phone, letting Giancarlo in.

Giancarlo’s a middle-aged Italian locksmith with more hairs up his nose than on his head. He also fervently despises WiFi enabled locks, which means Eddie trusts him unconditionally. After Eddie introduces him to Richie, he sets up by the front door, changing the current lock, then drilling a hole for a new deadbolt. The apartment is a rental, but if Richie can afford to pay Eddie's fees, he can afford to lose his deposit.

Eddie sits at the breakfast bar, all out of steam. He expected something, anything, but to find nothing is a punch to the gut. Even paparazzi never go this far, and he’s caught an honest to god drone hovering outside a client’s property.

Richie hangs around Giancarlo, chatting with him as he works. Eddie ends up catching snippets of their conversation. Giancarlo seems happy to talk about his children, occasionally asking Richie to pass him a screwdriver.

Richie's avoiding him, working through some sort of misplaced guilt, but Eddie doesn’t blame him. The fault lies in the person who sent the mailer, and Eddie for sleeping with Richie in the first place.

Eddie gets up to unload the dryer, only to hear Richie ask, “How did you meet Mr. Kaspbrak?”

Giancarlo launches into a long-winded explanation that could be condensed down to a simple, ‘he found me in the classifieds ten years ago.’

"Why did you choose him to protect you?" Giancarlo eventually asks.

A long silence follows, during which Eddie holds his breath.

"My manager sent me the profiles of a few protection agencies," Richie explains. “The moment I saw his picture, I knew he could keep me safe.” 

_ Oh. _

Eddie always assumed Covall chose Black Arrow. He didn’t know it was Richie’s decision.

Eddie ducks his head and smiles to himself.

He folds all of Richie’s clothes, leaving them on the bench at the foot of the bed when he’s done; organized into stacks by type and colour.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he stretches his arms over his head in a yawn. Through the bedroom windows, the sun sets over the Manhattan skyline. Eddie pulls out his phone, and logs into his cloud account, accessing the footage shot by the hidden camera outside Richie’s apartment. The camera has a motion sensor, not unlike the kind used by hunters. After detecting any movement, it saves video in five minute chunks.

He goes through the files, one by one, but all he sees are Richie's neighbors, Richie himself, and Eddie. If someone installed bugs in the apartment, they must be a ghost. Without a balcony, the only point of access is the front door. The bugs had to have been removed within the last ten days. This makes no sense.

Finally, he makes it to today’s video. Taking a deep breath, he clicks play. On his phone’s tiny screen, the mailer falls out of thin air, landing on the carpet. Eddie lets it play the entire five minutes, but nothing else happens. If the time stamp was distorted in any way, he’d swear the video was scrubbed, but it isn't, it looks clean.

He’ll send the video to their technician to double check the metadata, but he would have received an alert if someone hacked his cloud account. At this point he’s just coming up with excuses to explain the impossible.

“What the fuck,” he mutters to himself, exiting out of the player. He drops his phone to the bed, and rubs a hand over his tired face. Darkness hangs like a inky blanket over the sky, creeping slowly across the bedroom floor. Goosebumps ripple over his skin. The shadows seem much more imposing than before.

Eddie gets up and turns on the light.


	11. New York, 2016

Two months fly by and nothing becomes any clearer. Eddie religiously checks the camera footage every day, to no avail. It’s the end of March, and Richie hasn’t had another mailer dropped on his doorstep—the longest he’s gone without them since they first started showing up a year ago.

Their deadline, when Richie gets on a plane and flies back to LA, fast approaches. Already, the network cut some episodes from its order, so instead of Richie staying for another quarter, he only has two more months in the city. He mentioned in passing that the show will definitely be cancelled. The ratings are not high enough, considering it’s prime time TV. Richie won’t be back next year.

Eddie drums his fingers against his desk, staring at his calendar where a new date has been circled in red ink. He should be focusing on the spreadsheet in front of him. Scheduling used to bring him so much joy. Now he can’t concentrate enough to get through it.

Eddie pushes back his chair, unable to sit for any longer. His windowsill pothos sags unhappily, but Eddie barely spares the plant a glance. He paces, but the office is barely big enough for two people sitting, let alone one highly agitated person. He bumps into his desk, setting off the Newton’s cradle.

Click, click, click.

Richie’s been elusive these past few weeks. Today was his day off, but he didn’t invite Eddie over. He texted him a picture of his breakfast, but that was it. Radio silence for the rest of the day.

Click, click, click.

Richie’s going to leave. And when he does, Eddie could not go back to watching his movies, not when he knows how it feels to hold Richie in his arms.

Click, click—

Eddie picks up the cradle and flings it at the wall, breaking it into pieces. The silver balls scatter, rolling under the desk and radiator.

Fuck sitting back and letting whatever happen. He needs some reassurance from Richie, or at least a definite end. He can’t spend the rest of his life worrying over him when he’s gone. Therein lies madness.

Eddie grabs his coat, leaving the office in a hurry.

The drive to the Upper East Side takes less time than it normally does because Eddie drives like a crazy person. He runs a yellow light, and earns quite a few honks for weaving in and out of traffic. He parks in the building’s garage, and takes the elevator up to Richie’s floor.

He calmly knocks, because even in his agitated state he realizes what a terrible idea it is to hammer on the door. Richie opens it only a few seconds later, looking at Eddie in surprise. His hair is ruffled and he’s shirtless. For one awful second Eddie wonders if he has company, but then he notices the pen tucked behind his ear.

“Eddie?”

“I invited myself over.”

“I can see that.” Richie looks him up and down, and Eddie squirms under his gaze, hoping he hasn’t left his fly down or something equally embarrassing.

Eddie clears his throat. “Can we talk?”

Richie waves him in. The breakfast bar is almost completely engulfed by scraps of paper; some torn up, some crumbled, others covered in some pretty intense scribbles.

“Are you writing?” Eddie says, surprised.

Richie scratches the back of his head. “You know the showcase I was supposed to do for the comedy festival?”

“Don’t tell me it was cancelled.”

Richie shakes his head. “Since the network dropped a few episodes from the order, the show’s happening the night before I leave New York.”

Eddie winces. “That’s a… coincidence.”

“It’s fate is what it is. I’m rewriting my entire act from scratch. Steve got some big shot comedian to ghostwrite, but it feels disingenuous. I mean, ‘the fun is just beginning?’ What kind of supid-ass serial killer shit is that?”

“You don’t write your own material?”

“Nope.” Richie hops up on the stool, spinning around in a circle. “I haven't for years.”

“Wow,” Eddie says, but some part of him already knew that. His specials are just so  _ heterosexual. _

“Hey, you try travelling all over the world, filming movies back to back, I barely have time to take a shit, let alone write.” Richie lifts some paper, searching for something. Eddie reaches over, plucking the pen from behind his ear, handing it over. “Thanks. One day a week of free time is the most I’ve gotten in years.”

“That’s you’ve been doing?”

“Well I haven’t been twiddling my dick, or yours for that matter.” Richie waggles his eyebrows. “Want me to suck you off? I need a break or I’m gonna lose it.”

“Jesus, Richie.” Eddie sighs, the tension flooding out of him in a rush.

Richie pushes his glasses up his nose, winking. “Have I mentioned how glad I am to see you? C’mon, take a load off.” He moves some papers from the stool beside his, gesturing for Eddie to sit. “Just don’t read anything. Doubt you could anyway. Steve says I have a doctor’s handwriting. Guess that’s the one thing I inherited from Wentworth Tozier, DMD.”

Eddie does as requested. He doesn’t look at the words Richie scribbles, instead he looks at Richie. Watches his lashes flutter as his eyes run over the page, tapping a pen against his chin as he thinks. 

“Why are you shirtless?” Eddie asks after some time, getting up to make them some coffee.

The percolator hisses and sputters and Richie raises his eyebrows. “Uh, it helps get the creative juices flowing?”

“You’re high, aren’t you?” Eddie says, a little bit of fondness seeping through his disapproval.

Richie nods, his eyes looking slightly redder than usual. “I am  _ so  _ high.”

Eddie leans over the counter, touching Richie’s left pec. He’d noticed the faded scars on either side of Richie’s nipple a while ago, but thought nothing of them. In the stark light of day, they’re something else entirely; white and angry-looking.

“Oh, that.” Richie looks down at his own chest. “I got it pierced in ‘98.”

Eddie touches his right nipple, but notices no scars. “Only one,” he muses. “Strange aesthetic choice.”

“The piercer stuck me, and I vomited all over him then passed out.” Richie grimaces. “It hurt so much. I never went back to do the other side, figured I could start a new trend.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Cocky.”

Richie grins, grabbing Eddie’s fingers. He kisses the tips, lips lingering. “Good thing, cause the shop was shady as fuck. I’m just glad I ended up with an infection and not hepatitis. That would have warranted a doctor’s visit.”

Eddie glares at Richie sharply, snatching his hand back. “You didn’t go to the hospital when you had an infection?”

Richie pouts. “What? I was a starving actor, trying to be a starving comedian, you think I had health insurance? I would've been paying compound interest off a hospital visit for years. I slathered it in half an inch of antibiotic ointment, and it eventually cleared up.”

“You’re lucky it didn’t fall off.” Eddie shakes his head. “You’re nothing but trouble, aren’t you?”

Richie smirks. “Trouble? Is that your pet name for my dick?”

“Must be. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Ouch.”

Eddie sighs, good-naturedly, holding out his hand. “C’mon, I’ll jerk you off, you horny bastard.”

One handjob leads to one blowjob, which ends with them lying naked in bed.

Richie’s asleep on his stomach, hugging a pillow. The only part of his face Eddie can see is his ear. Richie’s leg is warm and heavy where it drapes over Eddie, pinning him firmly to the bed. He’s sorely tempted to grope Richie’s thigh, but he’s afraid that will wake him up. He looks like he can use the rest.

The window is cracked to let in some fresh air, because the vent has a sheet of cardstock duct taped over it. Surprisingly, it goes a long way towards mitigating his fears.

Unable to resist temptation any longer, Eddie gently ghosts a finger down Richie’s jaw. To his surprise, Richie moans, rolling over on his side. Eddie freezes, but Richie’s eyes remain closed as he throws more of his leg over Eddie’s hip, really getting up close and personal.

Richie smacks his lips. "Oh yeah, Cap'n Crunch," he mumbles, "I've been a very naughty boy." He turns his head, wedging his face between Eddie’s chest and jaw.

Eddie purses his lips, trying not to laugh. He wraps a hand around Richie’s neck, holding him closer.

The weeks pass like days.

Eddie takes Richie to and from work, but he tends to hang around the studio for a bit before leaving. Ziggy is all too willing to supply him with gossip. Apparently Ashford hasn't come back to New York. Word on the street says that the showrunner has him on lockdown. The network is starting to realize that they placed their bets on the wrong horse.

Eddie sleeps over at Richie's apartment more often than not. He earns quite a few interesting looks when he comes to work in wrinkled slacks because Richie doesn't own a godforsaken iron. Eddie ends up buying him one. He stores it in the laundry closet next to a spare charcoal suit.

Bev calls it his walk of shame suit. Eddie hasn’t felt such an overwhelming need to give her a noogie in years. Not that he wasn’t always on the receiving end of noogies when they were teenagers.

Richie doesn't own much in the way of clothing, so he's all too happy to donate a drawer in his dresser. Eddie-enforced laundry day makes for an interesting time. He rolls his socks into neat bundles, while Richie plays dunk with his, often sending them flying into Eddie's damn drawer. Needless to say, laundry day often ends with Eddie tackling Richie to the bed.

The days grow longer, warmer. The snow melts, then it doesn’t come back except for one unseasonably chilly day at the end of April. That infamous New York smell grows stronger; an unfortunate combination of piss and death that seems to seep into the concrete over the winter, only to hit full force when spring comes along.

He spends his days running Black Arrow with Bev, and his nights with Richie. All the while, he tries not to think about Richie leaving.

On the last day of production, Richie makes him drive to a bakery in Brooklyn, purported to sell the best cupcakes on the East Coast. Richie buys several dozen cupcakes for the cast and crew.

Eddie doesn’t stick around for the waterworks, too afraid that he might start crying as well. It doesn’t help that when Eddie comes to pick him up, Richie presents him with a box containing a garishly decorated rainbow cake.

He lets Richie feed it to him later in the evening, and only kind of regrets it when Richie smashes cake on his face, laughing like a hyena. Eddie gets him back by shoving a slice down the back of his shirt.

He may not have Richie forever, but at least he has this.

Eddie wakes up the morning of Richie’s showcase with the looming knowledge that this is their last day together.

Bev splits her breakfast omelet with him, which just goes to show how miserable he must look. Even the drive along 65th through Central Park is a somber one, despite the morning sun shining through the budding trees.

“Last night I dreamt I was in an orchestra,” Richie says the moment he opens his apartment door, looking like he hasn’t slept a wink. 

“Because you know how to play an instrument,” Eddie states. He walks in and shuts the door behind him, making sure to turn the lock.

Crowding Richie up against the wall seems second nature at this point. His hands slip up under his t-shirt, touching him everywhere. Eddie presses his lips to Richie’s neck, trailing his nose behind his ear, breathing in the sleep-warm scent of him.

“I dunno,” Richie says, gasping for breath as he clutches at Eddie’s shoulders. “I think I would be really good at the flugelhorn.”

“What,” Eddie says blankly, pulling back to look Richie in the eyes.

“My dream!” Richie frowns. “Or maybe it was a nightmare. Whatever it was, when I went to turn my sheet music, I accidently knocked over my stand, which knocked over the other stands like a bunch of dominos, and then the conductor—who coincidentally was my manager—was hit by the last one in the row. He fell off the stage, but the stage was actually the edge of a cliff. Then a chandelier dropped on my head and I woke up.”

Eddie drops his forehead to the base of Richie’s throat. "So you're nervous."

Richie snorts, wrapping his arms over and around Eddie’s back. "What gave it away, the pit stains? The cold sweat?"

"The levels of Greek theatre in your brain,” Eddie says. “The flugelhorn, really?"

“I have really specific nightmares.” Richie sinks his fingers into Eddie’s hair, tugging lightly on the strands. “Also, hi. We have the  _ entire  _ day together, whatever are we gonna do?”

“Apparently, distract you from your nightmare.” Eddie stands on his toes, kissing Richie softly. Richie bites his lip in return.

Eddie walks him backwards, down the hallway, right up to the edge of the bed. Eddie pushes him down. Grabbing him by the legs, he manhandles him up to the headboard.

Eddie soaks in the way Richie looks; his eyes dark with lust and surprise, his messy hair, crooked glasses, the t-shirt with a stretched out collar, his long hairy legs topped off by a pair of plaid boxers.

Eddie crawls onto the bed, bracing his hands on the headboard, on either side of Richie’s shoulders. He looms over Richie, straddling his lap.

“Oh wow,” Richie says, blinking up at him, hands coming down to rest on his thighs. “You’re a vision.”

Eddie’s heart skips in his chest. He unbuttons his jacket, making it easier for Richie’s fingers to deftly slip under, digging into his flesh. Eddie gasps, bending down to mouth at Richie’s cheek. Richie slides his hands lower, undoing Eddie’s belt and pulling down his zipper. He dips his hand inside Eddie’s underwear, curling it around his hard cock.

Eddie shudders, eyes shuttering as he moves his hips in Richie’s grip.

Eddie hasn’t taken many risks in life. He’s always done things by the book; a book he wrote, but a book nonetheless. Protocol is his master and his lover. Richie is the biggest risk he’s ever taken. But no matter what happens, he won’t regret him.

Eddie tugs at Richie’s lip, sweeps his tongue over his teeth until he’s nothing but a pile of goo underneath him. Smiling, Eddie slips from Richie’s lap, down to the floor. The little gasp Richie lets out when Eddie grabs him by the thighs, yanking him over to the side of the bed, his legs framing Eddie’s head is satisfying to say the least.

Eddie opens the bedside drawer and grabs a condom from the box, throwing the wrapper over his shoulder. He rubs his hand up Richie’s inner thigh, the other pulling him out of his boxers, working his length. Richie rises up on his elbows, watching intently as Eddie puts the condom between his lips, bending to take Richie in his mouth, rolling it down as much as he can with his tongue.

Thank goodness for college hookups and endless creativity.

“Fuck,” Richie squeaks, hands clenching at the sheets and not his hair. He has perfect bedroom manners. Eddie really appreciates that in a man.

Eddie smiles around Richie’s cock, then rolls the condom the rest of the way with his hand.

Richie feels so heavy on his tongue. Eddie can’t take him all the way, but his hand pumps what his mouth cannot reach. His knees ache, but he ignores it in favour of savouring the burn in his jaw. His hand goes down to his fly and he takes himself in hand.

When Richie comes some time later, he throws his head back, smiling so beautifully, so wondrously Eddie can’t look away. Richie’s thighs tremble beneath his hands, eyes bright and full of some unreadable emotion. His hair sticks up in all directions and his glasses are nowhere to be found. Satisfaction curls like a lazy cat, making him tipsy on the knowledge that he can make Richie look like this.

Eddie pulls back. Resting his face against Richie’s thigh, he stripes his own cock, aching for release. Richie’s scrambles to sit up, his knuckles stroking down the side of Eddie’s face as he boxes him in with his knees. Heat curls around him completely, soaking into his bones.

Eddie presses his lips to Richie’s fingers when he comes.

Eddie meets Steve Covall for the first time the night of Richie’s showcase. Only a hand shorter than Eddie, Covall acts and talks like a native New Yorker down to the bone. It goes a long way towards explaining where Richie picked up his near flawless Metropolitan accent.

The only think Richie told him about them is that Eddie knows he’s gay. Covall doesn’t seem to suspect a thing. He acts completely civil around Eddie, and when he shakes his hand, it’s perfectly polite.

“You’re not coming out tonight, are you?” Covall asks while they’re backstage.

When Richie told him he was going to do his own routine, Covall shrugged and said Richie could do whatever he wants; they’ve already collected the audience’s money. Which is an interesting way of doing business if you ask him.

“I don’t mind, Rich, just give me a heads up,” Covall continues, “I need time to prepare a statement. Gotta tell the homophobes to suck my  _ massive _ cock.”

“Jesus,” Eddie whispers. No wonder Covall is Richie’s manager, they’re perfect for each other.

Richie grins like a feral cat. “I’m not coming out.”

“Easier for me,” Covall says, wiping away an imaginary bead of sweat. “Want some whiskey, babe? This venue’s got the good stuff.”

“I’ll take a raincheck, Steve." He slaps Covall's back. "I want to keep a clear head for this.”

Covall runs off after a stagehand calls for him, leaving Richie and Eddie alone a short distance from the stage. If Eddie stuck his head out, he might catch sight of a venue packed full of people. It’s a sold out show. Richie hasn’t done a stand-up special in years.

He’s got a lot more fans now, whether they’re from his terrible movies or his awful TV show. Eddie’s certain they’re gonna be surprised by whatever comes out of Richie’s mouth tonight. Richie’s material will definitely be so much better than the garbage other people have been writing for him for years.

“Is it lucky to tell you to break a leg, or will you actually break a leg?” Eddie asks, reaching out to touch Richie’s wrist, the only contact he dares with all the people running around backstage.

“The second one,” Richie says.

He shakes off Eddie’s grip, only to clasp their hands together. Eddie offers a smile.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the emcee’s rousing voice echoes through the theatre, “you either love him or you hate him, but either way, he needs no introduction. Please welcome, Richie Tozier!”

Applause drowns the air, and Richie squeezes Eddie’s hand for a moment before letting go. He strides across the stage, waving at the audience, bathed in purple light. Eddie watches him go as the distance stretches between them.

“He’ll be fine,” Covall whispers, coming to stand next to him. “He always does just fine no matter what.”

Eddie clears his throat. “Yeah.”

“And besides, no one’s going to shoot him off the stage,” Covall adds unnecessarily. “Security made the audience go through metal detectors.”

“Gee, how reassuring,” Eddie mutters. Covall claps him on the shoulder, strong enough to make him step forward.

“I’ve built a career on talking shit about my girlfriend,” Richie says into the microphone, unhooking it from the stand. “I can go on and on, complaining that it takes her so long to get ready, when I look like this.” He gestures to himself. “Total fucking gremlin.”

Eddie smiles. To him, Richie is the hottest thing in the world. Then again, he’s biased. He’s been biased since he was twenty years old.

Richie shoves his free hand into his pocket and waddles across the stage. “I don’t like her friends because they think I don’t deserve her—and they’re right. I don’t deserve her. Mainly because she doesn’t exist.”

Someone in the crowd yells, “I knew it!”

Richie nods. “And you were right, my good sir. I lost my virginity when I was thirty-three, and by then I was already telling fibs about fucking a girlfriend I didn’t have, but that’s a whole other handbasket.” He waves his hand, dismissive. “I’ll get to that later. Basically, when you take into account that I’ve lied to you, my audience, over the many years I’ve been doing stand up, you have to wonder if anything out of my mouth is the truth. I have a solution for you.”

Richie stands in the middle of the stage and puts his hand over his chest.

“Tonight, I’m going to tell you three true things. I swear on my life, these three things are a hundred percent true.”

Richie strides across the stage, like he can’t stay in one place for too long. He meets Eddie’s eye for a second, lips twitching in a smile.

“Number one, vaccines eradicated smallpox.” He stops and shrugs as the crowd erupts into cheers. “It’s true, humans figured out how to exterminate diseases, and now some people are all, nah fam. I  _ like _ disease.” The crowd boos. “Yeah exactly!”

Richie sighs, pacing, his hands wringing at his sides.

“In 1962, my hometown was struck with an outbreak of smallpox. Eight people died. I know what you’re thinking, ‘Richie, you giant river otter-looking motherfucker, the last naturally occurring case of smallpox in the contiguous United States occurred in 1949. You don’t know shit!’ And you’d be right. Generally, I don’t know shit. However! I’m painfully aware of my hometown’s medical history.” Richie licks his lips. “Second truth incoming.”

He walks over to a stool by the right wing, and takes a long gulp of water from a bottle, making his audience wait. Making Eddie’s hands itch with anticipation.

Richie swipes the back of his hand over his mouth. “See, the thing is, I wasn’t vaccinated as a kid.” A few people in the audience gasp, including Eddie. “I know. I had to grow up...” Richie forms air quotes. “...‘make it’, and then when I finally got a manager to handle every aspect of my life, all he found in my medical history was a birth certificate. My parents never took me to the doctor.” His eyebrows fly all the way up his forehead. “I got shot screaming out of my mom’s vagina in a hospital, then they brought me home, and that’s it.”

Richie shakes his head, grinning maniacally.

“And it had nothing to do with whatever excuses anti-vaxxers come up with for letting children suffer from preventable diseases. I don’t understand the anti-vaxxers brain! I cannot comprehend that level of fucked up!”

The crowd cheers, but the smile slowly falls from Richie's face as he looks at his audience. Chest heaving, he runs a hand through his hair.

_“_ My parents, on the other hand, flat-out forgot. I’m not joking. They actually forgot. They brought me home, stared down at my weird, pink face, and said, ‘oh well, guess that’s a thing we have to deal with now.’ Then they promptly forgot all about me. It’s a wonder I even made it to thirty-three to lose my virginity.”

A few people laugh, but it’s a nervous kind of laughter. If Eddie didn’t know Richie better, he’d think he was in the middle of a psychotic break.

“I mean, having parents who hate their kid is one thing. At least then emotions are involved. If they beat on you, it means they feel something for you. My parents didn’t hate me, they just didn’t give a flying fuck. I must be suffering from PTSD or something because I can barely remember anything about my childhood.”

An oppressive silence falls over the crowd. It weighs heavy in the theatre. Richie’s far away on stage, but Eddie wants to reach for him. He wants to pull him close and tell him that he’s not alone. From what Richie’s said about his parents he knew they were pieces of work, he didn’t know they were abusive. Richie tells jokes, he makes light of situations. This revelation feels like a smack in the face.

“Which leads to my third and final truth. The town of Derry, Maine is a shitty, shitty place to grow up.”

Eddie’s jaw drops open with a click.  _ Derry. _ He hasn’t heard that name in years. It’s always been a black hole in the back of his brain. But now, a little spot of light shines through. He thinks of summers spent riding a bike down dilapidated streets, winters that smell of dirt and wet fur.

“You know those eight people who died in 1962?" Richie's mouth twists in a grimace. "They were all children. You thought my story was bad? Kids in Derry kick the bucket at a ridiculously higher rate than the rest of the country. And no one gives a fuck. The federal government sent task forces to figure out what was going on, but they all came back like—” he shrugs widely. “—everything sucks in that hell town! Because people don’t give a shit in Derry.”

Richie rubs a hand over his face, his age showing in the tired lines on his face.

“Wild, right? I could’ve died and nobody would’ve cared. I could’ve caught smallpox, or been eaten by a giant homicidal Paul Bunyan, and nobody would know the name Richie Tozier.”

Eddie thinks of a boy with coke-bottle glasses and a heart that could swallow the world.

“Now that none of you are laughing, I guess what I'm saying is that I must not be a likeable person. And that's fine! I think I'm finally okay with that. My purpose in life isn’t to make myself miserable bending over backwards to please you bastards." He whacks his thumb against his own chest. "I gotta make myself happy first.”

Richie nods once, smiling so brilliantly that Eddie lets out a shaky breath. He can picture a boy so clearly in his mind. Second hand clothes, a messy mop of hair. Colour and love; so much goddamn love.

A sharp pain lances through his palm. Wincing through the sting that brings tears to his eyes, Eddie holds his hand up to the light. A faint scar, silvery and old, bisects the middle of his palm.

“In 2006, I finally got vaccinated,” Richie says. “I strolled into my doctor’s office and got one shot after another. I’m talking MMR, Tdap, shingles, PPSV23, Gardasil. All the hits! Even now, every fall I get the flu shot.” Richie shakes his head, a grin spreading wide on his lips. “Two zero zero six, and yet I’m one of the few assholes who crawled through LA in the 90s and didn’t end up with HPV. So suck it, losers! Blooming late ain’t such a bad thing after all."

Eddie drops his hand and stares at Richie in sheer disbelief. Richie’s lips move as he continues with his routine, but Eddie can’t hear him over the ringing in his ears.

“You grew up in Derry,” Eddie says the moment Richie steps off stage.

Accepting a towel from a stagehand, Richie wipes the sweat from his face and behind his neck. “Yeah?” He says with a smile. “You’ve heard of it? Shocker.”

“Do you remember me?” Eddie asks, desperation tingeing his voice.

The smile slowly drops from Richie’s face.

“Rich, my man, that was weird as fuck.” Covall picks the worst possible time to approach. Richie stiffens, tearing his gaze away from Eddie. “We’ll polish it a bit and round off the rough edge, but next time we’ll record. It might win you an Emmy. Or a Razzie. It could go either way… who knew you had it in you!”

“Thanks, Steve,” Richie stammers, grabbing Eddie by the hand, tugging him away. “Uh, I’m feeling pretty tired, I’m gonna hit the hay.”

What are the chances that Richie suffers from the same affliction as Bev and him? Is there something in Derry’s water supply erasing children’s memories?

“You’re from Derry?” Richie asks cautiously, pushing through the stage door.

He lets go of Eddie once they’re outside, hovering some distance away. The air is brisk, windy. It whips Richie’s hair every which way. He folds his arms over his chest.

“It feels like a faraway dream,” Eddie says quietly, shivering in the chill.

The car is parked on the other side of the alley, behind the theatre. He can see it from here, but the alley itself is pitch black, syrupy and thick.

Eddie turns back to Richie, reaching out to take his hand. “We’ll talk once we’re back at yours.”

But Richie doesn’t hear him. He’s staring at something over Eddie’s shoulder.

Richie lifts a shaking hand, pointing. “What is that?”

Eddie whirls around as something pale steps from the blackness. It’s a man in high-waisted slacks and a shirt far out of time. His blood red hair curls over his shoulders.

“Dick Tozier,” the man says in a deep voice. It slides into his ears, leaving him with the distinct feeling like he’s whispering directly into Eddie’s eardrum. The wind ghosts along the side of his face, numbing his cheeks until he can barely feel them.

“You,” Richie says, voice shaking. He makes a noise of choked horror, clutching at the back of Eddie’s jacket. “It’s you.”

“I’ve been waiting so long, Dick,” the man says. He hovers half in the shadows, half in the moonlight, which only serves to exaggerate his features until his face is a horrific ruin.

“You were on set,” Richie says. Eddie can feel him shudder. “ _ SuburBBQ, _ you—you were there when Sheila fell, then when the gaffer was electrocuted. No one knew who the fuck you were, but you were there. Every time. Like the fucking angel of death.”

“What the fuck is happening?” Eddie hisses.

“I was there when he drowned,” the man tells Richie. His voice grows even deeper. “I was there when he broke into a morgue and cut off a corpse’s toe. I was there when his wife stabbed him to death.”

Richie’s voice shakes. “What the— what the  _ fuck  _ are you?” 

“All those pictures I sent you made you smell so sweet, didn’t they?” the man growls, licking his lips. “Don’t you know how fear makes the flesh tender? I was saving you for last, Dickie Dick.”

Eddie spares a glance for Richie and finds him with enormous eyes open wide as saucers.

“Oh, how I looked forward to having you. You were so close to crumbling into tasty morsels.” His gaze is as pale as death.

The shadows pour out from the alley, reaching for them in snake-like tendrils.

Taking a deep breath, Eddie stands his ground, pushing Richie behind him. He racks his brain, but he’s never faced anything like this before. This isn’t human. It’s a nightmare come to life. He shakes, leans back into Richie as the darkness approaches, slows, then finally stops bare inches from them. It’s a void no light can penetrate.

Eddie realizes that his shaking is anger, boiling inside him like he’s never felt before.

“But it’s awake now, and it’s so much stronger.” The creature seems to sigh. “I concede to its claim on you.”

Rage like a wild animal bursts from his chest.

“Fuck you!” Eddie screeches, fighting through the bone-chilling fear that makes him want to curl up in a ball and whimper. He needs to protect Richie. He needs to keep him safe, not because it’s his job, but because he’s Richie. Eddie kicks out, stomping on the tendrils, crushing them beneath his shoes. The creature screeches, retreating to the shadows.

“It will never let you go,” the creature swears as it melts into the darkness.

“Crawl back to hell, bitch!” Eddie screams after it.

They stay frozen in place for fuck knows how long. Minutes could have passed, or hours. Right now, time seems like the least of their worries.

Richie clears his throat, and slowly Eddie puts his back to the alley, turning to face him.

Richie jerks his head towards the street. “I vote we take the long way around the building.”

They don’t talk during the drive back to Richie’s apartment, and they absolutely don’t talk during the elevator ride. In fact, the bags gathered by the door—Richie’s and Eddie’s stacked in separate piles—seem like a friendlier topic than whatever the fuck just happened.

Wordlessly they get ready for bed in an apartment devoid of everything but the furniture. Richie’s clothes are missing from the floor. Eddie’s hair gel no longer occupies its designated place on the vanity. Soon, Richie’s lease will expire, and the apartment will move on to the next renter. Vaguely, he wonders if Richie will get his deposit back, on account of the extra lock Giancarlo installed on the door.

They lie awake in bed, Eddie staring up at the ceiling, his hands folded over his stomach. He can feel Richie’s eyes fixed urgently on him.

Every sentence Eddie tries to put together dissolves half-way through. What words could possibly describe the night’s events? 

Richie clears his throat. “Do you remember that fucking clo—”

Eddie’s phone rings. He jerks upright and reaches for his BlackBerry. It’s an unknown number. He frowns as his newly-acquired scar itches, but he takes the call.

“Hello?” he says with some trepidation.

_ “Edward…” _ an unfamiliar voice crackles through the line.  _ “Eddie?” _

“Who is this?” Eddie asks, sparing a glance for Richie. He’s sitting up on one elbow, watching him intently.

_ “I made a mistake,”  _ the voice says.  _ “I didn’t mean to… it wasn’t supposed to go this far. But I can’t, I’m not strong enough… Patty...” _

“Patty,” Eddie repeats slowly, the name ringing in his head, echoing and bouncing off his skull. “Patricia?”

_ “I can’t do this to her. I’m sorry. Mike believes in me. But I’m not as strong as the rest of you.” _

“Stan,” Eddie gasps, eyes widening. He forgot. How the fuck could he forget? Barely any time has passed since they met, but it’s like Stan didn’t exist in his brain before this call. Stan the accountant, who lives in Atlanta, and has a wife named Patty that he loves more than anything in the world. Eddie felt a connection with him, that day in the jewelry department; like they’ve known each other forever and then some. It was so similar to the connection he feels with Richie.

Briefly, Eddie wonders if he knew Stan in Derry.

“Where are you?” Eddie asks, pulling himself out of his somber thoughts in order to focus on the task at hand. “What’s wrong?”

_ “The bath. I hurt my wrists, Eddie. I… I didn’t know who else to call.” _

“It’s okay,” Eddie soothes. “I’m glad you did. Is Patty with you?”

_ “I asked her to pick us up some dinner,”  _ Stan gasps.  _ “I didn’t want her to find me.” _

“Okay, okay,” Eddie says, forcing himself to remain calm for Stan’s sake. “Would you call an ambulance to your house?”

Richie stares at him, speechless.

_ “Don’t want to,” _ he mutters. _ “I’m scared.” _

“Okay, Stan, okay. That’s fine,” Eddie says in a rush, terrified that Stan might hang up on him. Softer now, he continues. “Could you at least lift your hands out of the water?” Hold them to your chest?”

Stan must do as he asks because he can hear splashing.

“That’s good,” Eddie says.

_ “It hurts,” _ Stan whimpers.

“I know, but you’re doing so good. If you hold them tight against your chest—tight as you can—they won’t hurt, I promise.”

Firmly in crisis mode, Eddie picks up his personal phone from the bedside table, turning on the lamp in the same movement. He tosses the phone at Richie.

Muting the BlackBerry, he says, “Call 911. Tell the operator that a man in Atlanta has attempted suicide in his bathroom. Tell them I am on the line with him, and that I’ll get them an address soon.”

Nodding, Richie climbs out of bed, going over to the window, he thumbs away at the phone, holding it to his ear. He stares at Eddie, wide-eyed and alarmed.

Eddie tunes Richie out, concentrating on Stan. “Listen, I want you to tell me what street you’re on. It’s important, can you do that for me, please, Stan?”

_ “Patty loves this neighbourhood,” _ Stan sighs.  _ “There’s a swing on the big oak at the end of our street, the corner of Andrews and Cope. She used to say we could take our kids there, but we can’t have kids. My fault.” _

“Andrews, that’s your street? Andrews and Cope?”

_ “Yes.”  _ Eddie turns to Richie who nods, relaying it to the operator. “ _ It’s our dream house, Eddie. Patty collects art, and she has this orchid…” _ He trails off, sounding tired. He’s lost so much blood, he won’t be able to maintain pressure on his own for much longer.

“Stan,” Eddie says sternly, “Tell me about your house.”

_ “It’s colonial, two stories with these beautiful pillars. I love her so much, I work so hard to make her happy—” _

“And the number?”

_ “467.” _

Eddie repeats it to Richie. “That’s good, Stan. Could you tell me more about Patty?”

Eddie stays on so long, talking with Stan, he isn't sure how much time has passed. Richie sits beside him, their thighs touching in some small offer of comfort. Stan’s barely mumbling through the line, on speaker so Richie can hear him too. Eddie can’t make out a word Stan says by the end, but he keeps him talking, asking him question after question about his life, about Patty. He’s unwilling to hang up, terrified that Stan might succumb to unconsciousness and slip under the water if he lets him go.

The anxiety only eases once he hears a banging noise, then the splintering of wood as Stan’s bathroom door is kicked down. After that, only noise comes through; people shouting, water splashing on tile, a rhythmic pounding that might be a paramedic trying to restart Stan’s heart.

Then, when he thinks all hope is lost, someone comes on the line.

“He’s alive, but the situation is still critical,” a paramedic says, stern and professional. “We’re taking him to Atlanta General. Good work. You may have just saved his life.” She hangs up, and Eddie drops the phone to his lap.

“Holy shit,” Richie says, voicing their innermost thoughts. “If one more insane thing happens tonight—”

The BlackBerry dings, making Richie jump. 

He and Eddie share a long look. Eddie reluctantly picks up the phone and slowly turns it over to look at the screen. 

He finds five missed calls, and two voicemails. All from a number in Derry.


	12. Derry, 1988

The south side of the ravine is significantly steeper than Frank anticipated. Exposed clay peeks out of the gravelly mud; bright yellow ochre. The stream is just a few shades lighter, meaning all the soil and clay that was on the bank is now in the stream. Last year’s heavy rains washed away the trees that keep the soil from eroding. A few logs poke out from the water, bleached bone white in the sun.

Those same rains stranded hikers along the Appalachian Trail in early spring. While he was in Bangor dropping off a client’s restored ‘78 Mustang coupe, Frank caught wind of a rumor that one of the hikers had gone insane and run off deep into the woods, never to be seen again. He didn’t want to worry Eddie, so he never told him about the rumour. He’s glad it’s early October. With any luck, if they do stumble upon the hiker’s remains, they should be decomposed enough that his son won’t have nightmares for the rest of his life.

Eddie peers at a stand of staghorn sumac. The red fruits wave in the wind as Frank carefully navigates them around the bank.

“Eyes forward,” Frank says. 

Eddie snaps to attention.

Last winter, Frank took Eddie hunting for the first time. Before that, they went on foraging trips, but never far outside Derry limits. Now they’re more than twenty miles north of Derry, but close enough to the Piscataquis that the roar of the river is deafeningly loud.

The way is precarious at the top; wet riverstones slipperier than soap on a tile floor. Frank grabs Eddie by the waist, lifting him those last few feet. He makes a big show of it, grunting and huffing. Frank chuckles when Eddie bats him on the shoulder with his mittened hands.

He’s not exaggerating that much; Eddie’s far from the squalling, underweight baby he brought home from the hospital. He still shrieks like no one’s business, but soon he'll be too big to carry tucked under Frank's arm like a football.

“How can you tell the difference between staghorn sumac and poison sumac?” Frank asks as they venture deeper into the expanded archery zone. He keeps his strides short, Eddie behind him, walking in his footsteps. The mud is treacherous this time of year. If they aren’t careful, Eddie could get sucked in up to his knees.

Eddie wrinkles his face like he does when he’s thinking real hard. He has Sonia's nose, but everything else is all Frank, down to the parting of his hair.

“The sides of the staghorn leaves are bumpy,” Eddie says. “But the poison sumac leaves are smooth.”

“Good—”

“You can also eat the staghorn berries. They’re really sour, so it’s only good for lemonade. But you have to be careful. You can’t just dunk them in hot water, ‘cause it gets super bitter. They have to soak in cold water. Oh, and the worms.” Frank glances over his shoulder, just in time to see Eddie furrow his brow. “In fall, they’re full of this nasty worm poop and it ruins the lemonade!”

“Eddie,” Frank says fondly. He holds a finger to his lips.

“Right,” Eddie whispers. “Inside voice.”

The soughing of the wind through the creaking pines barely covers the noise they make. People did not evolve to live in the forest. Frida once said they were born for the plains—wide open spaces to stalk their prey—to walk and keep on walking until their game collapses from exhaustion.

Humans have neither the hide nor the hooves to survive in the woods. Still, they are somehow the deadliest things here. Abandoned bear traps lay hidden under the duff, but time and rust don't always render them useless. Yet another reason why he has Eddie walk behind him.

They move further into the woods.

Frank holds out his arm, gesturing for Eddie to stop. He hears rustling in the distance. Neither of them take another step.

Eddie’s breaths come faster, excited. “Daddy.” He grabs hold of Frank’s hunting vest, pointing between a copse of trees.

A buck stands maybe fifty yards away.

Frank pulls an arrow from his quiver. “It’s broadside, that’s what we want,” he says quietly, barely a murmur. “You never take a head-on shot, Eddie. It's not an ethical kill. You aim for the vitals; the heart, lungs, or liver. They're only accessible broadside or quartered.”

He sees Eddie nod, slightly, out of the corner of his eye. It’s complicated terminology, but he has to learn it. Too many hunters use a shotgun’s wide spray as an excuse to be cruel. If Frank is going to teach him, he’s going to teach him the proper way.

Frank lays the arrow on the rest, drawing it back. The string drags across the tip of his nose, anchoring at his jaw. He holds steady with his thumb hooked into the tendon of his neck. He doesn't breathe.

Any normal deer, like the ones around Bangor, would have taken off by now at the noise they’re making. This one flicks his ears. He recognizes their presence, but doesn’t seem to give a damn.

Frank never needed to set up tree stands while hunting in Derry. There’s something about the deer here; the bucks tend to abandon caution, even when it isn’t rut. They wander, like they do when they’re searching for does. Easy pickings, but that’s hunting in Derry. The herds are either lethargic and stupid, or they suffer from chronic wasting disease. He blames industry and the town itself. Last year Congress passed legislation meant to clean up storm sewer discharge, and yet waste still clogs the streams that feed these woods.

Frank snaps the release and lets the arrow fly. It goes straight through the lungs, out the other side, burying deep in the mud. The buck leaps away, but barely makes it a few yards before crashing into the undergrowth.

Derry is a careless town full of careless people. Frank longs for the day he can finally take Eddie and leave.

Stripped of their hunting gear, hands soaped and washed in the creek, they drive back into town. The field-dressed deer—wrapped in a tarp and secured to the truck bed—doesn't move an inch despite the ragged roads.

Frank pulls up to the fanciest restaurant in town, Green’s Farms, which just so happens to resemble a standard American diner. God forbid Al catches him saying sacrilegious things about his fine establishment.

Frida's on shift, and she looks up the moment Eddie pulls open the door. 

The first time Frank laid eyes on Elfrida Marsh, she had come into his garage wearing sunglasses despite the overcast sky. She drove an ancient sedan with a gash through the side—ripped like a torn piece of paper—and asked if he could fix it. He said the bodywork alone would cost more than the car was worth. She took off her sunglasses to reveal two black eyes and said if he didn't give her a damn good rate her husband would kill her.

Frank did the job, and only charged her for parts.

Now, eight years later—her husband seven years in the ground—Frank's hopelessly aware that he's ass over heels in love with her.

She’s pouring Butch Bowers a cup of coffee. At the sight of Frank and Eddie, a relieved smile slides on her face. Frank can’t blame her, Bowers is a real piece of work. He beats up his son. Then, when that isn’t enough, he drinks and beats up the folks locked in his holding cells.

It’s always the sadists worst-suited for law enforcement that become sheriff's deputies.

Bowers’ head follows Frida, and it makes Frank’s heart stall in his chest. Thankfully, Bowers soon glances back down at his newspaper, taking a sip from his coffee. Frank finds the best way to deal with men like that is to ignore them and hope they return the courtesy.

Frida leads them to an empty booth. She hands over menus, even though they’ve been ordering the same thing for years.

“So...” she starts, her hands slipping into her apron. “How was it?”

“Eddie screamed when I pulled a tick the size of my fingernail off the pelt,” Frank says.

“When dad squished it, blood squirted everywhere,” Eddie pipes up. He picks up the salt shaker, moving it out of Frank's reach. Ever since he did that health unit in school, he's been obsessed. “It was disgusting.”

“Sure was,” Frank agrees. “I’ve got the buck dressed in the bed if the cooks want it.”

“You know Al,” Frida says, “Free meat’s free meat. You sure you don’t want to keep the tenderloin?”

Frank shakes his head. “I’ve got enough in my freezer to last through end times. Besides, Al’s a different man once he’s had a bite of tenderloin. Maybe now he’ll give you better shifts. I know how much you like helping Beverly with her homework.”

Frida smiles, her eyes soft as butter. “I'll have one of the boys take care of it. You two, relax. You want your regular orders?”

"Yes, please," Eddie says, collecting the menus from the table, handing them back to Frida. He picks up his napkin and lays it over his lap. Frank watches him in amusement. He must have seen some of the other customers do it. In camaraderie, Frank places his own napkin in his lap.

Frida chuckles. "I'll be right back." She turns on her heel, striding off to the kitchen. Frank watches her go.

Eddie clears his throat.

Frank wills away the blush on his cheeks. “Any plans for the long weekend?”

Eddie shrugs, picking up the pepper shaker. He rolls it between his fingers.

“You could come with me to the garage,” Frank suggests, looking for any reason to spend more time with Eddie. He’s going to be a teenager in a year or two, and teenagers want nothing to do with their parents. “I have a TV in the office, and a space heater so you won’t be cold.”

Eddie looks away. “We’re eating lunch at Bill's house, then going to the arcade.”

“You and Richie?”

“And Stan." Eddie stops, then rolls his eyes. "Bill’s parents are weird about him because he’s Jewish. Some adults have nothing but stuffing between their ears.”

Frank laughs. “They really do.” He tweaks Eddie’s nose. “It’s a good thing you’ve got more than enough sense for everyone.”

Eddie nods. “He may be missing the tip of his dick, but he can still play Street Fighter just fine.”

Taken by surprise, Frank asks, “Who told you that?”

“That they chopped his dick off?” Eddie says, sounding uncertain. “Richie.”

“Of course it was Richie.” Frank sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Eddie, you need to take everything Richie tells you with a grain of salt.”

“Because he’s full of it?” Eddie suggests.

“I’m not saying he's deliberately lying, just that he sensationalizes some things. Or maybe he’s misinformed. What may be normal to Stan seems crazy to us, and it goes both ways. Richie is Catholic. Do you suppose he thinks drinking the blood and eating the body of his god is weird?”

Eddie gapes. “Richie does  _ what?” _

“All that Jesus stuff.” Frank waves his hand in the air. “It’s just wine and crackers. It’s easy for something complicated to sound stranger than it is. But you have to respect people and their beliefs.”

Eddie nods, frowning. “So they didn’t chop his dick off?”

“I’m saying, I don’t think you need to be so fixated on the integrity of your friend’s private parts.”

The pepper shaker slides out of Eddie’s hands. He ducks his head, a deep flush spreading over his cheeks.

Frank feels blindsided by his reaction. He expected some embarrassment, but this is far beyond discomfort. He’s constantly reminded that Eddie’s growing up, and growing up comes with a laundry list of problems that kids have to deal with. It doesn’t help that most adults are bigots. Frank likes to think he’s grown as a person over the years. Not a lot of people in Derry can claim the same.

Frank reaches across the table, putting his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie looks up for a second before his eyes dart away. “Be kind, and be respectful, okay?”

Eddie nods silently. They both see Frida grab two plates from the service window. Flustered, Eddie throws his napkin on the table and climbs from the booth in a hurry. “I’m gonna wash my hands.”

“Jesus stuff, huh?” Frida says, placing Frank's plate in front of him, even as Eddie dashes off.

“Oh hush. I never attended church a day in my life,” Frank says. “The only religion my father believed in was the bottle.”

Frida doesn’t look at him with pity, or even worse, discomfort. Her understanding is like a breath of fresh air. They were both born outside of Derry, and came to town expecting it to be a pit stop on the way towards fulfilling their dreams. Then things went wrong. Life caught up and somehow, years later, they ended up stuck.

Frida's the only person in town that Frank actually likes. She helped him after Sonia’s accident. He felt so helpless with a little child to look after, and no idea how to do it. Child-rearing as a single father had a steep learning curve, but Frida had his back every step of the way. He can’t imagine a future without her in it.

With that thought in mind, Frank brushes his fingers over the back of her hand. “Did you read the brochures I brought back from Bangor?”

She purses her lips, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “I looked over the numbers. It’s not worth it, Frank. The bank won’t give me a loan. I don’t have any assets, and I cannot afford to go into debt, not when I have Beverly to think of.”

“You don’t own your apartment?” Frank asks. “Alvin—”

“Had no savings whatsoever. He was a shit when he was alive, and a shit now that he’s dead.”

They look up as the door to the bathroom opens. Eddie comes out, looking slightly better than when he went in.

“Frida,” Frank pleads.

“I’m stuck here, Frank, that’s just the way it is.” She steps away from the booth, dragging her fingers out of his grip before Eddie sees.

“What did Ms. Marsh want?” Eddie asks, slipping into the booth, laying his napkin back in his lap. He picks up his fork, spearing a tater tot.

Frank shakes his head. “Boring adult stuff.”

Eddie seems to accept his answer. “Like taxes?”

“Yeah, exactly like taxes.”

Frank lies on his back with his head under the kitchen sink. Wrench in hand, he tries to fix an unfixable problem. He has to head out to the garage, but at the rate he’s going, he might tire himself out before he can put a dent in his work orders.

He thought he repaired the leak weeks ago. Last night, when he went to grab a glass of water, there it was again. That drip, drip, drip, returned to pester him. It’s a good thing he wasn’t cocky enough to remove the catch bucket, fully expecting something to go wrong. For a mechanic, Sonia’s father was terrible at household maintenance.

Honestly, there must be a back-up in the town pipes or something because Frank’s forever pulling clumps of red hair out of the drains.

He hears the front door open and shut, followed by the thundering of tiny feet down the hall.

“Eddie?” Frank calls out. He sits up and smacks his head on the bottom of the cast iron sink. Rubbing off the bruise undoubtedly forming on his forehead, he climbs to his feet.

Eddie was supposed to spend the entire day with his friends, but—he glances at his wristwatch—it’s only one in the afternoon.

Frank hoped to start on the out-of-town jobs that keep piling up in the garage. His work on the Mustang resulted in a  _ very _ happy customer, who in turn recommended Frank’s shop to all his friends. Frank can get much more money repairing expensive hobby cars than what he makes doing oil changes.

Sonia’s father left her the garage when he passed. It was an incredible investment, but Sonia didn’t believe in saving much. Their second biggest row was the result of Sonia spending more than five hundred dollars on a television. But the worst was when Frank wanted to put money away for Eddie’s education, and Sonia vehemently refused. She never wanted Eddie to leave Derry. It was then that Frank realized he made a tremendous mistake in marrying his boss’ daughter.

But Sonia’s gone now, and Frank gets to raise Eddie the way he wants. He likes to think he’s doing a good job on his own, no matter what the busybodies around town say.

“Eddie?” Frank calls, knocking on the bathroom door. “Are you okay?”

He hears a sniffle from within, and it makes his heart rate spike.

“Can I come in?” he tries.

“Okay,” Eddie says quietly. Frank opens the door and finds Eddie sitting on the closed toilet seat. He’s hunched over, swiping at his face. At first, Frank assumes he’s just crying, but then he sees the first-aid kit open on the counter.

“What happened?” Frank asks gently, crouching in front of him.

Eddie scrubs the tears from his eyes, and wordlessly turns to show Frank his left arm. The jacket is red, which explains why he didn’t notice the blood.  __ So much blood.

“Oh.” Frank moves aside some of the fabric to get a closer look, only to find that the cut is still sluggishly bleeding. It’s straight, not jagged at all, but long. Long enough to scare the shit out of him. It looks like it came from a knife.

“It’s bad isn’t it? It’s gonna get infected,” Eddie whimpers. “They’ll have to cut my arm off.”

“No.” Holding Eddie’s chin with a determinedly steady hand, Frank looks right into his eyes. “It’s going to be alright. I’ll take care of you.”

When they come back from the hospital a few hours later, Frank finds Richie Tozier stretched across his porch. He resembles a pile of leaves blown up the stairs. He looks awful. His eyes are wet behind his magnifying glasses and his nose is redder than a sunburn. He’s shivering, hands tucked into his armpits. By the looks of him, he’s been outside much too long.

“How is he?” Richie jumps to his feet, worried eyes darting up to Eddie’s sleeping face. “Is he okay? Did he have to get stitches?”

It’s a confession all on its own; Richie was there when Eddie got hurt. Frank’s sure it wasn’t his fault, at least not on purpose. Richie’s a foul-mouthed bundle of sass, but he would never willingly let harm come to his friends. Still, accidents happen. Especially in Derry. 

Frank shivers in the chill. He’d draped his own coat over Eddie’s shoulders since the nurse had to cut his off. “He’s asleep,” he whispers. Eddie was drowsy from the pain meds when he left the hospital, so Frank let him rest. He was brave today. Frank is so very proud of him. “Thirteen stitches.”

Richie swears softly.

Frank balances Eddie on his hip, an Rx bag in his free hand. Richie takes it so Frank can unlock the front door.

Frank takes Eddie straight to his bedroom. He can hear Richie plodding along after him, unsure. Frank pointedly leaves Eddie's door open enough for Richie to stick his head in. He keeps expecting Richie to say something, but he doesn’t.

Frank gently lowers Eddie to the bed, tucking him under the covers. He doesn't bother removing the coat. Eddie mumbles, burying his face in the fabric. It must smell like a gas station, but Eddie doesn't seem to mind. If he were awake, he'd toss it straight into the hamper.

Frank flips the lightswitch when he leaves, keeping the door open a crack.

He finds Richie sitting at the kitchen table, arms wrapped around his legs, chin resting on his knees. Frank picks the Rx bag of the table, storing it in the cereal cabinet.

“I suppose this didn’t happen at the Denbrough’s?” he asks, but Richie shakes his head.

Frank grabs a pot from the drying rack, taking it over to the sink. When he tries to turn on the water, nothing comes out.

"What did the doctors say?" Richie asks.

Frank opens the cabinet, quickly screwing the trap onto the coupling. He turns the water back on, but it leaks into the catch bucket. He should probably call a plumber.

"It was caused by a sharp object." Whatever it was, it left a two inch gash on his son's bicep.

"We were in the barrens outside of town,” Richie starts as Frank fills a pot with water, setting it to boil on the stove.

“Not the arcade?”

Richie shakes his head. “Bowers was there with Belch, and they were hogging Street Fighter. Stan and Bill stuck around, but me and Eddie left.” Richie looks away, something like shame coming across his expression.

Frank hums, so Richie knows he’s listening. He opens a packet of rotini, pouring it into the barely simmering water. Grabbing a chicken chub out of the freezer, he leaves it in the sink to thaw.

“I told him that sometimes the salmon make it south of the dam to spawn, but he didn’t believe me. He said I was lying, Mister K, but I wasn’t!” Richie exclaims, looking up. “I made him go, and we left our bikes by the dump. The river wasn’t that far away.”

A bad plan from the start. The Kenduskeag is a thundering body of water. It’s claimed many lives over the years he’s lived in Derry. Eddie can swim, Frank made sure of that when he was young, but in the spring and fall, the water levels rise and the rapids surge.

“There aren’t any salmon beyond the dam,” Frank says, starting on the sauce. He opens a jar of Prego, and dumps it in an empty pot along with the still frozen chicken chub. “They can’t get over the walls, Richie. You know that. You shouldn’t be going there when the water levels are so high, it’s dangerous.”

“But I saw their eggs floating in the river a few days ago. There were a bazillion of these tiny red balls, I swear.”

Frank shakes his head, wondering why Richie’s spending so much of his free time alone in the barrens. “Salmon roe don’t float, they sink to the bottom. Whatever you saw, they weren’t eggs.” It was probably scrap plastic from the factories upstream. The Penobscot is nothing more than a dumping ground for them.

“Eddie called me a liar. He said I was stupid, and that I was trying to get him killed.”

“Richie,” Frank says gently.

“I… he… I…” Richie buries his face in his hands, shaking with the force of his emotions. “He ran off into the woods. I tried to follow him, but he was so damn fast. When I got back to the bikes, Eddie’s was gone and there was blood all over the concrete. I was so fucking scared. I came straight here.”

“Don’t swear in front of my dad, Trashmouth.”

Eddie appears in the kitchen doorway. He looks at Richie for a bare second before tearing his eyes away, a red flush settling on his cheeks. Richie also blushes. Frank’s left with the distinct feeling that he left out a big chunk of the story.

“You’re awake,” Frank says with a smile. “How are you feeling?”

Eddie ghosts his fingers over the bandage on his arm. “Sore, but better.”

Frank nods, smiling with relief. He turns back to the stove.

Frank drains the pasta, then tosses it in the pot with the sauce, stirring a few times to get everything coated. Eddie grabs three plates from the cupboard, pulling out his designated step stool to do so. When Frank brings the pot to the table, he finds all the cutlery ready for use.

An uncharacteristic silence hangs between the two boys.

Frank grabs an extra chair off the porch, and when he returns, Eddie and Richie are sitting on opposite sides. It’s a small table, so when Frank wedges his chair in there, everyone ends up brushing elbows with him.

Richie’s usually the talkative one, even while he’s eating, so it’s strange to not hear a single word from him. Frank asks him questions about school, and he answers in simple yeses and nos. But he takes seconds, and then thirds as usual, so Frank isn’t too concerned.

Frank chews slowly, waiting for an explosion, but nothing comes. Somehow, this is the tensest dinner he’s sat through, and he still has nightmares about the first time Sonia made him eat with her parents. Her mother made ambrosia salad with cashews, but Frank turned it down. She spooned some in his plate anyway. Frank didn’t eat any, but he still broke out in hives. Sonia cried because she thought he was ruining the dinner on purpose. He should have hit the road then and there, but Sonia had money, and he had nothing. He couldn’t see anything beyond that.

After dinner, Frank knocks out an antibiotic capsule into Eddie’s hand, giving him a glass of cold water to chase it down.

It’s pitch black outside. He knows some parents wouldn’t give a damn about their kid biking around late at night, but it’s hunting season, and the deer sometimes wander into town. Frank trusts that Richie will go straight home, but he doesn’t have the same faith in the lazy bastards that sit on their porches with shotguns, firing at anything that moves.

Richie itches closer to the door, but Frank grabs his keys before he can escape. “I’ll take you home,” he says. “Eddie, are you coming?”

They pile into Frank’s Ford pickup. The bench seat provides more than enough room for a grown man and two children.

Eddie fiddles with the sound system, pressing play. He jumps when pure sound blasts through the speakers. Eddie turns his head slowly to look at him.

Pointedly, Frank stares right out the window. It isn’t what he usually listens to, but Frida gave him the mixtape. It’s full of Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the B-52’s, and Frank isn’t ashamed. It’s good music, even if some people might call it trash with an agenda.

The drive across town is loud but quiet. Richie bobs his head to the beat, drumming his fingers on his knees. On the surface, Eddie seems like he couldn’t care less, but Frank knows his tells. Eddie narrows his eyes and purses his lips when he’s listening closely. It’s how Frank could tell if he was paying attention during their foraging trips, or if he was dozing off into the clouds.

Frank pulls into an empty driveway. It’s nearing eight at night, but not a single light is on. It’s not the first time he’s driven past the Tozier household and seen an empty driveway. The Toziers don’t have jobs that require late nights. Wentworth’s a dentist with annoyingly brief hours and Maggie occasionally works reception at the town hall. Still, they’re never home.

The last time Frank got his teeth cleaned and asked how Richie was doing, Wentworth had said ‘who?’ It’s only after Frank added ‘your son’ that Wentworth understood who he was talking about. The encounter soured Frank’s opinion of him. It takes a special kind of neglect to forget his own child’s name.

Frank keeps the engine running, turning to Richie. “Will you be okay alone?”

Richie blinks behind his glasses. He seems nervous as he looks over his looming, dark house. “I’m used to it.”

“If you want to come back with us, I can open the spare cot—”

“Dad, no,” Eddie says firmly.

For one long moment, Richie looks surprised, but it quickly turns into an aching sadness. He hops down from the cab, and slams the door shut, stalking off towards his house, shoulders hunched.

Frank wordlessly waits until he sees him go inside, glancing at Eddie out of the corner of his eye. His cheeks are wet.

They’re turning on their street when he finally brings up what’s been bothering him all evening.

“Did he do something to you?” he asks, stopping at the curb in front of their house.

Eddie doesn’t answer right away.

Frank shuts off the engine. The music cuts off and the headlights go out with a blink. Under the light of the moon, Frank can barely make out the expression on his son’s face. “In the woods,” he clarifies. “Did Richie hurt you?”

Maybe it’s the dark, and Eddie can pretend he’s alone, or maybe it’s because Richie’s gone. Whatever it is, Eddie opens up, but his answer isn’t what Frank was expecting.

“Dad, why would someone hurt an animal?” Eddie asks.

Frank frowns, then turns to look out the windshield. Down the street a raccoon pokes its head from a trash bin. It climbs out, landing on all four feet. A single kit peeks its head around the bin, snuffling at its mother’s face. Raccoons rarely have one kit in a litter. Barely half a year must have passed since that kit was born, but all its siblings are dead.

“Is that what you saw? Someone hurting an animal?” Frank asks. “Then they hurt you?”

“No, he didn’t see me.” Eddie takes a deep breath, and the weight of it sits between them with nowhere to go. “Patrick Hockstetter was in the junkyard, I saw him from the edge of the woods after I ran from Richie. He had a possum. He wouldn’t let it go even though it was screeching and biting him. He shoved it inside this old fridge. It was crying so loud, but he just sat in front of the fridge and listened to it scream.”

Frank’s sad to say he isn’t surprised. He knew something was off about the Hockstetter kid. Ever since he saw him at the harvest festival, barely six years old and already lighting ants on fire with a magnifying glass. Then again, Frank is a gazelle with claw marks down his flank. He can sense when a predator’s near.

“How did you get hurt?” Frank asks.

Eddie winces. “Cut myself on the fence.”

“I don’t understand,” Frank says. “Why did you run away from Richie?”

Eddie shakes his head, biting his lip. “It was stupid. He was probably just playing around. You do it to me all the time.”

“Whatever I do, and what Richie did, it makes you want to run away?” Frank asks, worried that he’s been crossing some invisible line with Eddie and didn’t even know.

“Not when you do it.” Eddie shrugs, gaze fixed on his tightly clenched hands. “He kissed me on the cheek.”

“Oh,” Frank says, startled.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Eddie says in a hurry, like he’s trying to convince himself.

Frank doesn’t remind Eddie that the only reason he kisses him is because he loves him. There’s no doubt in his mind that Richie loves Eddie, but he never thought it went beyond friendship.

“Richie isn’t like that,” Eddie says, finally looking up at him, like he’s trying to make Frank understand. “He’s always talking about girls. It’s not his fault they don’t like him back.”

Cautiously, Frank ventures, “You know it’s okay if he is like that, right?” Frank pauses for a moment, gnawing on his lip. “Just not here. Not in Derry.”

_ “Why?” _

Eddie sounds so small, so heartbroken. Frank wants to take his words back, but he can’t.

“There’s a lot of bad in the world, Eddie,” Frank says sadly. “But usually there’s much more good to balance it out. Except in Derry. Here, there’s so much bad it poisons the water, killing all the good.”

Eddie sniffs. “You told me to be kind and respectful of peoples’ differences.”

Surprised, Frank blinks. “I did say that.”

“Why does that apply to Stan but not Richie?” Eddie mumbles.

Frank clasps Eddie’s shoulder. “I want you to respect other people, I want you to be kind to Richie and Stan, but most importantly, I want you to be safe. I want Richie to be safe. There are people in this world who do bad things just because they can.”

“Like Patrick?”

“Like Patrick.” Like Butch Bowers. Like Frank’s own father.

A lifetime ago, when his father came home from his shifts at the prison, he would order Frank to pour him a glass of bourbon. If he didn’t do it exactly the way he liked, or if the bourbon had too many air bubbles, or if an ice cube cracked like a gunshot, he would scream until Frank cried.

If Frank did everything perfectly, and the game came on the radio without a hitch, he would make Frank sit at his feet. He told him stories about work. Things Frank never wanted to hear. Bloodied beatings, starved prisoners, and people driven mad in insolation. Even if the stories didn’t make Frank throw up, he wouldn’t get a good night’s sleep for weeks.

Eventually, Frank started messing up on purpose. He was so angry that someone who was supposed to love him treated him like this. He saw the care other fathers had for their children. He wanted that. He wanted to be picked up, held, loved. He didn’t want to hear those damned stories.

He would burn dinner. He’d shake the bourbon until the bitter dregs ruined the taste. He broke the crank on the radio. He poked the beast with a stick in an effort to get away from tales of devils locked behind iron bars and the graphic ways his father tortured them. Torture, because his father never served up justice. It was only ever pain.

One day, Frank went too far. Soon it wasn’t his father’s stories he had to fear, but his fists.

Frank’s been scared his entire life. He wants better for his son, but that better won’t come until he gets them out of Derry.

“What about the possum?” Eddie asks. “I’m sure he’s done it before.”

Frank closes his eyes. “Stay away from Patrick Hockstetter. And that junkyard.”

“But if we tell the police...”

Frank thinks about Butch Bowers. He thinks about walking into the sheriff’s station. Thinks about going up to a man that reminds Frank of his father, and he wants to curl up in a little ball and cry. He’s not a strong person. He’s not even brave. He had that beaten out of him at twelve years of age.

“Nevermind them,” Frank says. “I want you to be safe. People like that get what’s coming to them, believe me. The universe has a funny way of balancing itself out.” 

It happened for Frank when his father died in a riot. Years later, after the warden blew out his brains, a psychologist wrote a book about that prison. Frank bought a signed copy, but it took him years to work up the courage to crack it open. When he finally did, he learned that his father was beaten to death with his own cudgel. He died the same way he abused Frank, and countless prisoners. Karma is fair. It isn’t always swift, but it is inevitable.

The best thing Eddie can do is keep his head down and hope the monsters never see him. Let fate handle the rest.


	13. Derry, 1988-1989

Georgie Denbrough goes missing in the last week of October, and nobody sees it happen.

It rains so much the missing posters have to be coated in a thick layer of packing tape, otherwise they melt off walls and utility poles, disintegrating into clumps of ink and pulp. Sometimes, even after Frank slaps on a few layers of tape, he comes by and finds the posters missing. Almost like someone ripped them down.

The first few times it happens, he spends five dollars on photocopies and even more on tape. He goes around town and wraps each copy in at least half a roll, then staples it for good measure.

Still, they get torn down.

Frida makes sure the poster on the restaurant notice board remains in place, but as the days go on, and October turns into November, people start sticking notices overtop. Announcements ranging from the inane; second hand grills for sale, and rooms for rent, all the way to another missing child.

The town is spooked. One missing child is a lost lamb. Two, are a pattern. For some time parents don’t let their children go out after dark. The world is a scary place and predators roam these streets.

The sheriff’s department organizes search parties throughout the barrens, but few volunteers show up the first day, and fewer as time passes. Eventually, it’s just Frank and Frida when she gets time off work.

Frank hits the bushes with a stick, and dreads finding a child. Or even worse, children. At the end of the day, when the sun goes down and he can no longer search, he wishes he would just find a body. The uncertainty is worse than anything else.

November turns into December and the canal in Bassey Park freezes. Children stay out after dark to skate. He can see their flashlight beams through the trees from the road. The town has already forgotten the two missing children. Frank wishes he could put it out of his mind so easily.

Frank insists that Eddie come home before the sun sets, which doesn’t leave him much time outside after school ends each day. Last year his front yard featured the Battle of Gettysburg, complete with snow cannons firing snowballs via the pitching arms of twelve year old boys. This year, there’s only a solitary snowman missing its carrot nose, stolen by some hungry critter.

Frank hasn’t seen Eddie's friends around lately.

He supposes children must feel loss more acutely than adults. Resistance takes time to build up and children don’t have all their antibodies. The first blow hits the hardest. 

The winter break rolls around, and Eddie’s full of so much pent-up energy, he’s ready to explode. He runs up and down the hallways, and at one point he knocks Frank right over. At night, he’s completely different. He curls up on the couch, sitting by the phone, his head buried in his arms. Sometimes he’s so tired, he falls asleep right then and there. Frank has to carry him to his room.

Frida is the only one who calls.

One night, Eddie picks up after the first ring, and his face falls as he hands the phone over to Frank.

There’s a small lake some miles north of Derry, deep in the forest. Not even a lake, a pond really, fed from an underground tributary of the Penobscot. The water at its deepest point barely reaches over Frank's head. It freezes solid in the winter, the perfect place for a game of hockey. Or as much as four kids with rusting steel strapped to the bottom of their shoes and cheap plywood sticks that tend to warp in storage can play hockey. 

Frank used to drive the kids there every year. Eddie, Richie, Stan, and Bill, squashed into the Ford’s bench seat, gear tossed in the bed. Far away from the overcrowded Bassey Park. This year there’s been no calls to the house, and no interest in that tradition.

“Beverly would like to go,” Frida says as Frank untangles the telephone cord from around his ankles, taking it over to his recliner. Eddie stares despondently out the window. “I told her about your lake, she hasn’t been skating in years, but she used to be good.”

Frank isn’t so tone deaf to believe that Eddie can replace one friend with another. But he thinks a day out in the most beautiful, serene place in the county would do him a world of good. Convincing Eddie is something else altogether.

“A girl?”

“Yes, Beverly Marsh is a girl.” Frank rolls his eyes, loading the sticks into the bed, tossing a couple of road pylons in after them. He swiped them from the pothole down the street after he filled it in himself. Derry public works leaves much to be desired. According to the mayor, if it lies outside the city centre or the neighbourhood with the largest houses, it doesn’t exist. “You two go to school together.”

“Yeah, but she’s a girl.” Eddie pouts. “Girls don’t play hockey.”

Frank slams the tailgate shut, turning around to fold his arms over his chest.

Eddie doesn’t relent. He stomps his foot. He’s a little angry puffball in all his layers. “There are no girls on the Olympic hockey team,” he says, as though that’s a reasonable argument.

“That’s a failure on behalf of the Olympics, not women,” Frank says firmly. “Frida informs me that Beverly can and will skate circles around you.”

Beverly does more than skate circles around Eddie, she skates figure-eights. Eventually, Eddie gets over whatever preconceived notions he has about girls and hockey, because he asks Beverly to teach him how to skate backwards. She holds his hand as she shows him, and Frank supervises from his seat on the truck bed. He parked on the shoreline, the ground frozen enough to drive over what is untenable mud in the springtime.

“Thank god she doesn’t take after her father,” Frida says, adjusting the blanket draped over their laps. Their thighs touch, and the point of contact is a constant zing in the back of his mind. “She’s all me.”

“The world could use more Elfrida Marsh,” Frank says, chuckling under his breath as Beverly spins Eddie around one of the pylons. Twirling him like they’re on a dance floor, not a sheet of thick but bumpy ice. Eddie looks so startled, but then he breaks into a brilliant smile, cheeks pinking.

The sun sits high above the trees, warming the clearing slightly, but their breath still fogs in the brisk air. “She’s having trouble at school,” Frida says. “She hasn’t told me about it, but I know. I went through the same thing.”

Frank turns to look at her. The light shines through her hair and makes her eyes glow that much brighter.

"My friends were kind to my face, but they talked behind my back. I was a slut, a whore, a bitch,” Frida says. “Beautiful girls suffer as much as those who aren't conventionally attractive. Just in a different way. The only kids who get away scot free are the plain ones.”

Frank isn’t sure that’s true. Everyone lives their lives differently, and Frida’s experiences are not universal.

He was not a handsome child, but he didn’t suffer the scourge of teenage acne. He was a perfectly plain boy, and still he was harassed by his peers. It wasn’t his looks that made him an easy target. It was his dead mother, and the fact that his father was a step away from being the town drunk. It was his introspection, and it was his difference.

“Children can be so cruel, Frank,” Frida says. “Girls are supposed to be pretty, but not too pretty. We’re meant to be beautiful enough to tempt, but not to force action.” She touches the scar on her chin. Years ago, she unflinchingly said it was left by her husband in a jealous rage. “Such a precarious balance."

“I’ll ask Eddie to keep an eye on her,” he promises. It’s harder to pick off an animal when the herd’s on high alert.

Frank looks back at the lake, just in time to see Bev hit the puck, sending it careening between the two pylons. The first goal of the season. Eddie throws his arms in the air, grinning wildly.

“You’re quiet today,” Frida says after some time, fingers ghosting over the back of his hand. “You’re usually more chatty.”

Frank tilts his head, watching the sway of the bare branches. “I love it here.” He looks back at her. She seems so real in the sunlight. “I’m glad I could share it with you.”

Centuries ago, red wolves hunted in the coastal forests of Maine. They kept the deer population in check; picking off weak and diseased animals, forcing them to gather in smaller herds.

In large numbers, deer tear up the underbrush, eating away songbird habitats. Gathered close together, they spread disease. Sick deer congregate by roadsides, resulting in shattered windshields in his shop. If the motorists are lucky.

A healthy forest relies on predation, but there are no natural predators left. Wolves were extirpated from Maine in the late nineteenth century. Shot for their pelts and their preference for livestock. Black bears don’t bother anything but fawns, and encroaching coyotes have yet to become established.

Humans are a different sort of predator. Humans choose the biggest, healthiest animals to kill, leaving the sick. The sick deer make more sick deer, until all that’s left are diseased herds. Humans are the last line of defence, but they are also the cause.

For all his ruminations, Frank supposes that if he saw a wolf, he would shoot it. His son plays in the barrens. The mere thought of Eddie stumbling upon a wolf is enough to scare the ever living shit out of him.

The Hanlon farm is already having problems with coyotes picking off their ewes. Leroy Hanlon mentioned taking potshots at them when he brought his Power Wagon in for a tune-up. Coyotes need to get their priorities straight. Leave the sheep alone, start picking off the deer.

Frank tips a baggie of minced venison into a ripping hot skillet. The frozen meat hisses and lets out a cloud of steam right into his face.

“Bev said she saw Richie at the movies with Stan.”

“Whoa there,” Frank whirls around, spoon in hand, only to see Eddie sitting at the kitchen table. He’s wearing a frown that has no business being on a twelve year old’s face.

“He didn’t invite me.” Eddie pouts, bottom lip sticking out. “He  _ always _ invites me.”

“I’m sure he just…” Frank trails off, at a loss for reassurances. Richie, what? Forgot? He has a memory like a steel trap. If he didn’t invite Eddie, it means he didn’t want him there.

“He doesn’t wanna be my friend anymore.” Eddie swipes tears from his cheeks. “He said horrible stuff about Bev, and no one defended her. Bill’s too busy writing his speech for his brother’s funeral, and Stan just sits there, reading his bird book.” Eddie looks up, miserable, his eyes red and nose snotty. “I stuck up for her, now Richie doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

“Hey,” Frank says gently. He turns off the gas, then goes to kneel in front of Eddie. “It’s okay.” He squeezes Eddie’s knees in reassurance. “It sounds to me like he’s just jealous. You made a new friend, and he’s acting the only way kids know how.”

Eddie sniffs. “Bev doesn’t hang out with us at school, why would he be jealous?”

“I won’t pretend to know the workings of the teenage mind,” Frank says, even though he has some idea of the thoughts running through Richie’s head. He gently combs the baby hairs off Eddie’s forehead. “What you and Richie have is special, isn’t it?”

“I think so,” Eddie says, unsure.

“You have to make it clear that Bev changes nothing about your friendship. It’s possible to have more than one friend, and you can love more than one person.”

Eddie nods, but he looks away from Frank, staring down at his feet.

That settles it. Frank moves the skillet off the stove. He grabs his truck keys, then gestures to the door. “C’mon, I’ll drive you to Richie’s house. You can ask if he wants to join us for dinner.” Frank figures there’s a zero percent chance that Richie’s parents will be home, so what could be the harm?

Wordlessly, Eddie hops down from the chair.

Frank turns the music all the way up during the drive. Frida’s sister took a trip to Fredericton a few months ago and came back with a suitcase full of cassettes. All of Frida’s mixtapes have since been full of Canadian hits.

Frank pulls up in front of Richie’s house. As he expected, the driveway is empty.

Eddie’s hand hovers over the door handle, hesitant.

Frank notices movement behind the sheer curtain in Richie’s living room window. He sighs, then reaches across Eddie to open the door for him. Poking Eddie in the shoulder, he gestures at the house. “Go on, he won’t bite.”

Eddie mumbles, “He has before.”

“Now I find that hard to believe.” Richie reminds Frank of the mutt that lived on the end of the street where he grew up. That dog survived by eating trash out of people’s cans and somehow always evaded the dogcatcher. He was never vicious, and he accepted scritches behind the ear with great fanfare. Richie’s not the type to bite the hand that feeds.

Eddie climbs down from the cab, and Frank watches as the front door cracks open and a mop of unruly hair pops out. Frank smiles, leaning on the steering wheel as Eddie approaches. Richie opens the door wider. They move towards each other; slowly, shyly. But Richie’s the first to break. He throws his arms over Eddie’s shoulders, pulling him into a hearty hug.

They’re just kids, but what they have transcends time and space and all that nonsense. Frida says he isn’t a poetic man, but who needs poetry when there’s real human connection in the world?

They’re at a funeral, but there's no body to bury. The groundsman uses a jackhammer to break through the frozen earth so the Denbroughs can bury an empty coffin and pretend it’s enough. They can hear it from the chapel as the priest says his platitudes.

Richie sits between Eddie and Frank during the service. Unsurprisingly, Wentworth declined to come when Frank called up his office.

This is the first time he’s seen Bill in months, and he looks much worse for wear. There’s an awful distance between him and his parents, not just in space, but in attention. They barely look at him. They accept mourners’ condolences, but they don’t offer him any. No touches, no hugs, nothing. It’s like Georgie was their only child, and Bill is a reminder of what they lost.

He brightens when Stan and his parents come by. But it doesn't last long. Bill's mother dodges Mrs. Uris’ offered hand. After that, Stan's parents are quick to take him and leave.

“How are you holding up?” Frank asks Bill once it’s their turn with the family. The groundskeeper must hit a rock because the jackhammer lets out a terrible shriek, and Bill’s eyes fill with tears.

Eddie pulls Bill into a hug right away. He lays his hand on the back of Bill’s head. Somehow, he knows exactly what to do. It’s such a small thing, but Bill takes the comfort offered.

Frank wonders when Eddie grew up. That morning Frank woke to a freshly laundered shirt, a pressed tie, and slacks hanging on the back of his door. He supposes that’s the thing about tragedy; it matures kids beyond their years.

“Fine,” Bill says, because that’s the only socially acceptable answer to his question.

The coffin goes into the ground, and everyone throws roses on top.

Frank never buried his father. He took what the state gave him—a tin urn—and tossed it in the trash. How can a child who lived just seven years endear himself to so many people, when his father was loved by no one?

The Denbroughs walk down the hill, hand in hand, but Bill stays. They climb into their car, and Frank watches in disbelief as they drive off, down the winding cemetery road. Leaving behind their son.

Bill sighs deeply, and the saddest thing about the whole situation is that he doesn't seem surprised.

"Go ask Bill if he's hungry," Frank says to Eddie. "We'll drop him home after."

They go to Green's Farms, because of course they do. He hasn't been to another restaurant in Derry since he met Frida.

Things start off quiet and awkward, but eventually Richie makes a joke that Frank wishes he could unhear. Bill cracks a smile, and all bets are off the table. Frank wonders why he thought it would be a good idea to voluntarily look after three screaming kids. They're so loud, Al comes out of the backroom, pleading with them to keep it down. The only way Frank manages to get the screaming—and the cursing on Richie's part—down is by splurging on dessert. He gets a discount on meals, but dessert's another thing.

When Frida hands him the cheque, she does so with a wry smile and a reminder that it's not good to reward rowdy behavior. He tells her that next time, she can look after the pack of screaming kids after they've eaten nothing but peas and Salisbury steak.

Somehow Eddie leaves the restaurant with applesauce down the front of his shirt. He didn't even have applesauce. They climb into the pickup cab, sticky fingers and all.

Bill hesitates once Frank parks in his driveway. He turns to Eddie and Richie. "Can you guys stay over tonight?"

Eddie looks up at Frank with devastatingly adorable eyes, but Frank wags his finger. “That isn’t my decision to make.” He says to Bill, "You have to ask your parents."

Bill frowns. “They won’t notice.”

“You still have to ask,” Frank says firmly. “And make sure Richie calls home.”

In the end, Frank isn’t sure if they do ask, but once they go inside the house, no one comes back out. A light goes on in an upper floor window, and Eddie pops into view, waving. Frank takes that as his queue to head home.

He pulls up in front of his house, and finds a figure sitting on the porch chair. It’s too dark to see who they are from a distance. Once Frank walks up the path, leaving neat footprints in the crunchy snow, a mop of red hair becomes apparent.

“I gave you a key,” Frank says, climbing up the steps. He leans against the railing, lifting a brow.

“I know, and I used it.” Frida smiles up at him, a steaming cup held between her mittened hands. “I figured I’d enjoy the night while waiting for you two.” She peers around him. “Where’s Eddie?”

“The Denbroughs,” Frank says. He opens the front door, and gestures for Frida to enter first.

She left the light on in the kitchen. Frank goes to put the kettle on the stove, and she follows him, sitting at the kitchen table.

“Want a refill?” he asks.

She holds her cup out, and Frank pours boiling water in, setting out a box of orange pekoe tea bags. She likes it black, always has, always will.

“Is Beverly enjoying the weekend with your sister?” Frank asks, resting against the counter, mug in hand. He doesn’t drink tea, but he enjoys a cup of hot water just fine. He blows away the steam, and it unfurls in the air.

“She lets her stay up long past her bedtime,” Frida says wryly. “So yeah, I’d say she’s having a good time.”

They talk until Frida’s tea grows cold. Frank serves leftover meatloaf with slices of Wonder bread. She compliments him on the recipe, making him feel like a million bucks, even though he got it off the back of a ketchup bottle.

The sky turns from deep indigo to pitch black. They sit together on the couch while  _ Cheers  _ plays on the TV. Frida’s hand rests on his forearm, and he can’t see anything beyond her fingers, wrinkled like prunes from her shift at the restaurant.

He leans towards her. She’s the only person who makes him feel real. Other than Eddie, he’s never loved anyone before her. He kisses her on the cheek. It’s the first time he’s touched her in such a way.

She pulls him close and kisses him on the mouth.

Frank wakes to a sound like nails on a chalkboard. He blinks sleep from his eyes, registering the weight on his chest. Hair tickles his chin, and Frank glances down, finding Frida fast asleep. She looks so peaceful like this. He marvels at the smoothness of her brow and the pale line of her bare back.

The noise comes again, and Frank looks towards the window. Dark shapes stir outside, the dogwood shrubs moving in the wind. The tips of branches scrape along the glass. He has to trim them before spring comes along and the foliage thickens.

He closes his eyes, burying his face in Frida’s hair, trying to go back to sleep.

_ Frankie. _

Frank opens his eyes. The sound might have been the branches hitting the glass, but it came from the opposite direction. There’s a wall between the door and the window, blocking the moonlight in the corner. It’s such an oppressive darkness, he must be seeing things. He’s reminded of the shapes that form on his eyelids when he closes them against bright light. Starbursts and grids pop into being; like the lines that make up the inside of a car’s engine.

_ Frankie,  _ the voice says again, and this time, it’s definitely a voice.

He tries to move, but he can’t. His limbs aren’t his own. He can’t blink. He can’t even open his mouth to scream. All he can do is watch helplessly as the shadows melt from the corner, coalescing in the air like an oil slick, thick as tar.

_ How could you do this to me, Frankie? _

Frank’s eyes dart around the room, helpless, as the darkness gathers. It’s taking on a definite form now. One that is terribly familiar.

_ I knew that slut would steal you from me. _

Frank squeezes his eyes shut, but she’s still there when he opens them. Her head is at a crooked angle, not in line with the rest of her, and her left arm hangs limp at her side. The doctors said they would have to amputate it in surgery, but she died on the operating table long before the arm could become an issue. Frank remembers asking to see her, but they didn’t let him. He wasn’t there when they cut her out of the car. She was driving on her own when the drunk driver hit her. Every damn day Frank thanks the universe that Eddie wasn’t in that car.

_ Unfaithful man! Disgusting animal! _

He never saw her like this. It’s just his mind playing cruel tricks on him.

_ I am your wife, in life and in death! _

The darkness that is Sonia lifts a knee onto the bed and the mattress sinks. Frank feels the weight of her moving him closer into a black hole. He knows, whatever this is, it’s real.

“Frank!”

He scrambles up in bed, hitting his elbow on the headboard. His arm goes numb, ants crawling across his skin. The lights are on, and Frida sits on the edge of the bed, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She stares at him, eyes wide, hair sticking up in all directions.

Frank’s lips feel wet and the taste of pennies sits uncomfortably on his tongue.

Wordlessly, Frida plucks a tissue from his nightstand, handing it to him. “Your nose is bleeding,” she says quietly.

“Oh.” Frank pinches his nose, holding the tissue to his face. He casts his eyes towards the foot of the bed, but finds nothing there.

Frank fans his face with the track and field programme, his son’s name printed under the contestants for the endurance run. The day is unseasonably hot for the end of April, with no breeze to offer any respite. Frida had the right idea with her straw sunhat, shading even her freckled shoulders with its wide brim.

They sit on the bleachers watching their children on the field. Beverly crouches on her haunches, hair in a ponytail coming out the back of a Maine Black Bears cap. She keeps time on a lime green stopwatch as Eddie circles through his stretches; lunges, splits, his hands flat on the rubber track as he bends right in half. Eddie’s friends cheer from a blanket on the field, less athletically-inclined, but still supportive.

“Beverly has the makings of a coach,” Frank observes.

“Makings?” Frida scoffs. “She’s a bonafide professional. She checked out the library’s entire kinesiology shelf. I stubbed my toe on the stack this morning.”

She sets her hand in the space between them, and Frank folds their fingers together. They haven’t told anyone about their relationship, figuring it’s better to keep it a secret until they’re sure it’s going to stick.

Eddie throws Beverly a thumbs up, before jogging to join the rest of the competitors at the starting line.

A pack of giggling girls stride up to Bev, blocking Frank’s sight of her from the bleachers. When they clear out, he sees Beverly sprawled across the ground. She holds a hand over her shin, eyes wide as she looks up at the girls.

Frida makes a noise under her breath.

Frank squeezes her hand when he feels her move. “Wait.”

“Hey!” Richie yells, already on his feet.

Eddie mentioned that they were getting along better, but Frank thought ‘getting along’ meant ‘tolerated.’ He never expected the look of righteous fury on Richie’s face as he marches over. He shoves himself between Beverly and the girls, teeth bared.

“I didn’t know you were PMSing, Keene!” Richie shouts loud enough for the entire county to hear. “Bev would have thrown you a rag if you asked!”

“I don’t need you to defend me, Trashmouth,” Beverly protests, her face turning red.

“Yeah, listen to the slut,” one of the girls yells. “Suck a dick, Tozier!”

“Fuck you!” Beverly exclaims. She scrambles to her feet, diving at the girls, but Richie holds her back. “Everyone knows that’s all you do after school!”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Frida mutters under her breath. “I don’t know if I should ground her or serve her a slice of cake.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to reward bad behaviour,” Frank teases. Frida elbows him in the side.

“At least I’m not a loser like you two!” the tallest girl shrieks.

“Kiss my juicy, loser ass!” Richie turns around and slaps himself on the behind.

“Cake,” Frank says, nodding his head, “Definitely cake.”

The tallest of the girls looks about ready to throw down, and Frank thinks he may have to let go of Frida. Somebody needs to save Richie’s life. That kid sure knows how to get himself in difficult situations.

Before the scale can tip in either direction, the starter pistol cracks and Eddie goes flying. Eddie runs like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He could trot for days around that track and go absolutely nowhere, but the smile on his face makes Frank understand why he likes this so much.

Richie helps Beverly to her feet, dusting her off. He tugs her over to Bill and Stan, letting her have his place on the blanket. Richie curls up on the ground, leaning against her legs, and all is right in the world.

Eddie crosses the finish line in second place and Frank jumps to his feet, screaming his congratulations, but it’s Eddie’s friends that pile on top of him, tackling him to the grass.

Frank promised a barbecue, so a barbecue is what they get. A few days ago he took his sawzall to a drum he had lying in the garage. With two hinges bolted to the lid cut out of the side, he made himself a nice charcoal grill. The actual grill is some steel mesh pulled off the front of a junk Chevy. It’ll rust at the first sign of rain, but for now—as he lays down frozen patties and Frida’s chicken kebabs to cook—it does the job.

The kids run around the yard, screaming their heads off, as kids do, while Stan supervises from his seat on an old stump. He’s the calmest of the kids. Eddie’s neat and tidy, but he’s constantly involved in shenanigans with Richie. Stan, though, he’s quiet, like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. For a twelve year old, that’s a pretty hefty burden to bear.

“Hey, Stan,” Frank says, “is that a good one?” He points to the edge of his backyard, where a tiny iridescent bird sits in a budding dogwood. It hops along the branch, searching for grubs.

Stan drops his jaw. “Holy cow, that’s a black-throated blue warbler!” he exclaims, hopping to his feet. “Nice find, Mr. K!”

“Yeah, nice find, Mr. K,” Frida says, bringing out a bowl of potato salad. She twirls her towel and smacks him on the ass. “Nice behind, Mr. K.”

The kids are too busy doing who knows what to see him lean over and peck Frida’s cheek. “Behave,” he says sternly. “I know we said we were going to tell Beverly and Eddie today, but showing is different than telling.”

Frida sticks out her tongue.

The food gets handed out on melamine plates. An entire roll of paper towels goes into cleaning barbecue sauce off faces and little fingers. Later, Frank pretends he doesn’t see Richie in the kitchen, cutting out the plaid-clad Brawny man on the plastic overwrap.

In the end, telling the kids doesn’t go as terribly as Frank imagined. He had nightmares of Eddie running away to Portland, and Beverly calling him her evil step-father. Kids are some of the least predictable things in the universe. They constantly surprise him.

“I told you so! Beverly shouts, jumping on Eddie’s back, mussing up his hair. “I told you they were dating! Give me my money!”

“I can’t give you five dollars!” Eddie exclaims, stumbling around like a headless chicken, trying to buck Beverly off his back. “I’m a child, I have no money!”

Smiling, Frank throws an arm over Frida’s shoulder, pulling her close. The kids can sort this out on their own.

Richie comes to Eddie’s defence, trying to pull Beverly off of him. But Bill takes the other side, tickling Richie until he can’t do anything but curl up on the ground, laughing his head off. Stan sets down the pair of hunting binoculars Frank let him borrow and joins in on the fun.

The day turns to evening, and then the evening turns to night. The kids pile together on the living room floor, wrapped up in sleeping bags and lovely dreams. He sits in the backyard with Frida, the waning moon high in the sky, stars sprinkled like salt on a black tablecloth.

She doesn’t seem to mind the juice box he handed to her. It’s the only beverage he keeps in the house, other than milk. Frank doesn’t drink alcohol. He can’t stand the smell, or the taste, or the memories it brings to the surface. Still, he offered to buy her beer. Frida took one good look at his face and shook her head.

“I put it in his beer,” Frida says suddenly, her head turned away like she’s talking to the woods. “I washed the bottles before I returned them, so I figured no one would catch on. It was stupid. I was just so goddamn furious. He left bruises on Beverly’s arm. The kind that comes from grabbing someone and shaking them. He did that. To  _ my  _ daughter.”

Frank hums, letting her know that he’s listening. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hoots.

“It was days later that I realized the coroner might do a tox screen and find the rat poison in his system. I kept waiting for the police to arrest me, but no one ever came.” She huffs, shaking her head. “Somehow, I chose the perfect town in which to murder my abusive, piece of shit husband.”

Frank lifts his juice box, toasting the woods. “To Derry.”

Frida clicks their straws together. “To Derry,” she echoes sedately.

She turns to him. He can barely make out her expression in the dim light, but the air between them is expectant. 

“I love you,” Frank says, needing her to know. Those three words say so much. He doesn’t care that she murdered Alvin. In fact he celebrates her gumption, and the strength she has to get things done.

“Oh,” she says, surprised.

Frank takes her hand. “I love you so much.”

Frank lies flat on his back under a beautiful Pontiac Firebird. The owner noticed a stain on his garage floor, so Frank’s checking the lines for leaks.

He used to get so scared that a jack would come loose and a car would fall on top of him. Nowadays, he’s rolled in and out on his creeper so many times, it doesn’t phase him at all.

Frank hears the screaming long before he sees the source. At first he thinks it’s just some neighbourhood kid enjoying their summer vacation a bit too much. But then the voice carries over the sound of his radio, and Frank realizes they’re yelling his name.

He rolls out from under the car, just in time to see a kid pedaling furiously into the garage, skidding to a stop. He pants, sweat running down his face. “Mr. Kaspbrak,” he says.

“Aren’t you Leroy’s boy...” Frank starts to say, trailing off when he registers that Eddie’s sitting in the bike basket, his arm hanging at a very wrong angle. How the hell was that not the first thing Frank saw?

“Daddy,” Eddie whimpers. His face is absolutely caked in dust, oh, and his arm is  _ broken. _

Frank’s tools go flying in every direction as he rushes over. He holds Eddie’s face in his hands, checking him for any more injuries, but the only visible thing is the horrifically broken arm.

“Okay,” Frank says, breathless, nodding to himself. “Okay. We’re going to the hospital.” Frank picks Eddie out of the basket, setting him on the ground. His legs wobble but the Hanlon boy steadies him. Frank pulls his car keys out of his coveralls, tossing them to the boy. “The blue Ford in the yard, open the passenger’s side.”

The boy runs out, and Frank sweeps Eddie up in his arms, following after him. He sets Eddie on the bench seat, then climbs behind the wheel. The Hanlon boy hesitates, his hand on the door like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to come along.

“What are you waiting for?” Frank says, sliding his key into the ignition. “Get in.”

The boy slides in beside Eddie, bracing himself against the dashboard. Frank floors the gas, making the engine scream. Eddie whimpers as they drive over the uneven ground, and Frank curses himself for putting off yard maintenance.

“What’s your name?” Frank asks the boy as they fly down the street. “I know you’re a Hanlon, but what’s your first name?”

“Mike,” he says, his grip white knuckled.

“Nice to meet you, Mike,” Frank says, taking a hard left. “Wish it could’ve been under better circumstances.”

Thankfully, the x-ray finds a clean break. Eddie won’t need surgery. They set them up in a clinic bed, and with one sharp tug, the doctor realigns the broken bone.

“What happened?” Frank asks as the nurse mixes up a bucket of plaster for the cast.

Mike shuffles his feet awkwardly, crossing and uncrossing his arms. He looks like he’s about five seconds from running away. Eddie just clenches his jaw, looking up at Frank unwaveringly. He says nothing.

Frank huffs, marveling at his son’s stubbornness. “Did I ever tell you about the first bone I broke?”

Eddie shakes his head.

Frank tugs on the collar of his coveralls, pulling down his undershirt to just below his collarbone. A ragged scar sits across the left one, red and angry-looking. “I was pushed into a ditch, and it snapped like a twig. Tore right through the skin.”

Eddie winces. “Pushed?”

Frank nods. “By a couple of neighbourhood bullies with nothing better to do than harass me. They ran off after. I had to drag myself out of that ditch, covered head-to-toe in mud, then walk the rest of the way home.”

“By yourself?” Eddie asks, brow furrowed like he can’t imagine having to be alone when he’s hurt so bad. Eddie never walks home alone. He always has a friend with him, and for that, Frank is glad. 

Frank’s father screamed and he raged, but ultimately he took him to the doctor’s. He complained about the medical bills until the day he died.

“I didn’t have friends like you do, Eddie,” Frank says, glancing up at Mike. “You’re lucky to have so many people looking out for you.”

Eddie bites his lip, pracially chewing it ragged. “We were at the abandoned house on Neibolt Street,” he says quietly. “I fell through the floor.”

Frank inhales sharply through his nose. That damn building is rotting away but the county still won’t demolish it.

“I’m sorry, dad.”

Frank drops his hand to Eddie’s dirty knee, rubbing a spot of mud with his thumb. He clenches his jaw. “You’re a kid, and kids do stupid things all the time. It’s called growing up. The important part, Eddie, is that you’ve learned your lesson. You won’t go back to that house, will you?”

Eddie shakes his head.

Frank studies his face for a few long seconds. “Okay, good.”

The nurse brings over the plaster, and Frank moves away from the bed, letting her work. He keeps his hand on Eddie’s shoulder, offering some comfort.

“So,” Frank says, dragging out the last syllable. “How did you two meet?” He turns to Mike. “Leroy mentioned that you were homeschooled?”

Mike clears his throat, scratching the back of his neck. He can't seem to look Frank in the eye. “Richie was thinking of signing up for 4-H, he brought Eddie to the farm to look at lambs.”

“Richie.” Frank blinks. “Is doing  _ 4-H. _ With a  _ lamb,” _ he says in disbelief. “You two want to try that again?”

“You’re being unfair.” Eddie makes an expression like he’s sucking on sour lemons. “Richie’s a caring person, he’d be amazing at raising a lamb.”

Frank considers that. “I’m not disputing Richie’s many qualities, but I can’t see Maggie or Wentworth allowing a farm animal into their house. And, as far as I’m aware, the Toziers don’t have a heated barn in their backyard.”

Mike snaps his fingers. “That must be why he didn’t end up picking one,” he says, nodding his head. “That makes sense.”

“Uh huh,” Frank says in a monotone, making sure they know just how truthful he thinks they’re being. Mike looks away.

The nurse leaves them to let the cast dry, promising to return with a sling. It’s only after she rounds the corner that Mike speaks up.

“He saved me,” he says so quietly Frank almost doesn’t hear him. “Bowers and his gang were gonna kill me, but Eddie and his friends saved my life.”

Frank looks at Eddie, and finds him staring up at Mike with the faintest hint of a smile. Pride mixes with fear in Frank’s stomach, and it must show on his face because when Eddie turns to him, that smile slips right off.

“I know you told me to stay away from them,” Eddie says. “But we couldn’t let them hurt him.”

There’s always been bad blood between the Bowers and Hanlons, and enough racism to fuel a cross burning. The Bowers kid could have killed Mike, and knowing this town, he would have gotten away with it. If Eddie was alone and he stumbled upon the scene, they would have killed him too. It’s such a terrifying thought, it makes Frank sick.

If Frank was in Eddie’s shoes, he would have run away. He would have left Mike to die; this kind, strong boy who rode his bike across town to bring Eddie to him. It would have haunted Frank his entire life, but he would have done it.

“I don’t understand.” Frank cups Eddie’s jaw gently, looking into his freckled face.

Eddie is so different from Frank, his grandfather, and every Kaspbrak before him. He has the strength Frank never had.

“You’re so much braver than I could ever be,” Frank says, voice choked up. He rubs his thumb under Eddie's eye and wants to cry. “I don’t know where you get it from.” Eddie reaches up and wraps his fingers around Frank’s wrist. “I learn so much from you every damn day," Frank admits. "Sometimes I feel like I’m the child and you’re the parent.”

“No.” Eddie shakes his head, eyes wide as his fingers dig into Frank’s wrist. “How could you think that? You taught me everything I know. You’re doing a fucking amazing job at being my dad.”

“You're swearing?” Frank cracks a smile, teary-eyed. “You must mean it.”

“Oh, Eddie’s got a mouth like a sewer,” Mike says. “He just keeps it tame in front of you.”

“Mike!” Eddie exclaims. "Why the fuck would you say that?" Eddie clasps his hand over his mouth.

Frank can't help the laugh that bubbles out of him like a fountain.

Frank drives Eddie and Mike to the house. He’s not even surprised to find a pack of kids sitting on the porch, jumping to their feet once Frank stops in front of the house. There’s a new one with them, and Frank wonders what’s the story behind him. Did Eddie save him too? Knowing his son, it’s possible.

Richie’s quick to jog down the path, flinging open the cab door. He hauls Eddie down, pulling him into a stranglehold of a hug.

Frank leaves knowing full well that Eddie's in loving hands.

He finds Mike’s bike where he dropped it. Lifting it into the truck bed, he straps it down. Frank locks up the garage, briefly checking over the cars and his tools. Thankfully nothing was stolen. Insurance doesn’t cover property loss caused by his own negligence.

He drives past the dump, daylight waning on the horizon. Turning onto Neibolt street, he spots Eddie’s bike right away, lying on the curb.

Frank hops out, opening the tailgate with a creaky whine. He’s going to have to oil the hinges one of these days. He picks up the bike with a huff, knees creaking louder than the hinges. He’s in his mid thirties and his knees are already giving him trouble? Life just isn’t fair.

The wind blows past his ear, hair tickling his cheek.

_ Frankie. _

He whirls around, nearly dropping the bike on his foot. Frank scans the street, but there isn’t a single person nearby. Unsettled, Frank gets to strapping down Eddie’s bike with much less care than he normally would.

_ I miss you so much, Frankie. _

Chewing on his inner cheek, Frank pumps the ratchet strap until he hears the nails-on-chalkboard sound of metal catching on metal. He just ruined the paint job on Eddie’s bike, but he can’t find it in himself to care. Sweat beads on the back of his neck.

_ Such a scared little boy. You won't even look at me? _

He hops down to the street, slamming the tailgate shut. From the corner of his eye, he catches a flash of teal fabric blowing in the wind.

_ You broke my heart, Frankie. I’ll break yours. _

Hands shaking, Frank fumbles for the door handle. It takes him a few tries to get it open, but once he does, he’s inside and starting the engine in one shot. Frank peels down the street like the devil himself is snapping at his heels, sparing not a glance for the house looming at the end of the street.

One evening at the end of July, Eddie trudges home soaking wet. Frank smells him before he sees him. He glances up from the book Frida leant him; a complicated read on space and physics she said anyone could understand, but somehow it still flies over his head. One of these days Frank’s going to convince her that college is her next big step, even if it kills him. He’ll drive her all the way across America for campus visits if that’s what it takes.

But for now, Eddie stands in front of him, looking like the contents of a sewer. He has a viciously devious grin on his face; like he climbed Everest and found it wanting.

"Should I start a load of laundry?" Frank asks, setting down the book. He doesn't bother marking his place.

Eddie peels off his shirt, throwing it on the floor with a wet slap. Frank blinks at him in surprise. Eddie places his hands on his hips, puffing out his chest. "You’re gonna tell Frida you want her and Bev to move in with us."

"I am?" Frank asks, dumbfounded.

"Yeah." Eddie nods his head. Up and down, up and down. "You are. Then you’re gonna tell her you wanna marry her."

"Whoa," Frank says, climbing off the couch. He freezes, holding a hand to his chest. A piercing pain shoots through him like an arrow. He sits back down, out of breath. "Where's this all coming from?"

"Get your ass in gear, dad." Eddie grins, showing off his pearly whites. He resembles a feral cat in his enthusiasm. "We're getting the fuck out of this pyscho clown town."


	14. Derry, 2016

There’s a massive zit growing on Eddie’s chin.

He pokes at it, frowning in the tiny mirror of the airplane bathroom. Eddie didn’t pack his spot treatment into his carry-on, too afraid the TSA agents would trash it. He has no idea how long they’ll be in Derry, but he won’t be able to replace it if it’s tossed. That’s the problem with small towns. There aren’t any goddamn skincare stores.

“Heya, sugar pie honey bunch,” Richie says when Eddie returns to his seat.

Eddie glares at him. Richie’s been trying out ridiculous pet names for the last half hour. It started with ‘sweetie,’ and escalated from there. “Can you not?” Eddie lifts up the armrest between them, leaning against Richie. "You think it’s cute. It’s not."

“I can’t help myself.” Richie grins. A stewardess announces over the PA system that they land in twenty minutes.

It’s been one hour since they left New York City. One hour since Eddie’s contract to protect Richie was rendered null and void because of their leaving the city. But Eddie doesn’t need a flimsy document to make him do something he would do anyway. Keeping Richie safe is pretty much ingrained at this point. Hence why Richie’s sitting in the middle seat despite wanting the aisle.

“It is pretty cute,” Bev says. Leaning across Richie, she holds out a package. “Pretzel?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Richie chirps, stealing Eddie’s pretzel. The nerve of him.

“You’re dead to me,” Eddie informs him bluntly.

"Oooh, you just got dumped," Bev sing-songs, dumping the rest of the pretzels in her mouth. "Fuck, these are good."

Eddie slumps in his seat. The moment he collects his luggage he's going to smear so much treatment on that zit, it'll never again see the light of day.

Mike Hanlon's first voicemail goes something like this:

_ Eddie? Hi, there. It's been a while. Jesus. How’re you doing? Um… right, this is a voice message, so you can’t answer me back. It’s Mike, by the way. Mike Hanlon. We grew up together in Derry. Listen, I’ll try Bev first. And hopefully when I call you back, you’ll be on the other end of the line. Talk to you soon. Bye. _

His second voicemail, well that’s a bit different:

_ Hey, man, Mike again. I talked to Bev… she’s booking tickets for the two of you right now. Yes, well… I’ve tried calling you many times now, and I suppose you’ve either been in the shower for an insane amount of time—which, talk about prune fingers, amiright? Or, you’re the type of person who never picks up calls from strange numbers. Doesn’t seem possible considering your line of business, but what do I know about bodyguards? _

_ Bev’s going to call you. She’ll cover everything I’m about to say, but just in case… haven’t you wondered why you can’t remember your childhood? Derry’s just this gaping blank space in your mind, isn't it? I know why. And I know how you can remember. _

_ Come home, Eddie. I’ll see you soon. _

Bev spots Patty first.

They’re hanging around the luggage carousel, waiting for their bags when Bev taps him on the elbow, nodding towards the car rentals.

Eddie had given her Stan’s name and business card, and in typical Bev fashion, she looked him up. Stan’s Facebook page hasn't been updated in months, but Patty’s is fully stocked. According to her bio, she teaches freshman psychology at Georgia State. Most of her photos were taken at school events, but a few of them were of Stan sitting on their porch drinking lemonade, or completing jigsaw puzzles with a level of concentration reserved for the kind of people who willingly become accountants.

Only a few pictures feature the two of them together, but when they do, it’s plain to see just how content they were. On Halloween, Stan and Patty dressed up as the Ghostbusters, back to back, guns ablazing. Bev had laughed and called them adorably happy.

But happy is the last word Eddie would use to describe Patty now.

Her hair is disheveled in a way beyond what can be explained by a red eye flight. Her cardigan is wrinkled. Going by her jewelry and the cut of her clothes, she’s not the type of person who would normally let that slide. She looks achingly tired. Considering what she’s been through, he expects no less. Still, it’s easy to see why Stan loves her. She stands straight and proud, and smiles at the person manning the rental counter, even though it looks like it takes some effort.

“Wow. She’s gorgeous,” Richie says.

Their bags tumble out of the chute, one after the other. Richie grabs his and Bev’s duffels, leaving Eddie’s hardside suitcase on the conveyor like a total asshole. Eddie chases after it, dragging it off the belt where it drops to the ground with a dull thump. It may be heavy, but Eddie likes to be prepared.

“She looks like a Pre-Raphaelite painting come alive.” Bev says out of nowhere. Eddie raises his eyebrows, and Bev’s cheeks colour splotchy red. She turns on him with a glare that could flay a man alive. “I can appreciate a beautiful woman when I see one, okay? Don’t get all homophobic about it.”

Eddie looks up the ceiling, practically begging for a lightning bolt to come down and strike him. “I know you’re teasing me, but just so you’re aware, I won’t take the bait.” At that exact moment, thunder claps somewhere far in the distance.

“Real mature of you,” Bev says wryly.

“He’s a very mature man,” Richie adds with a waggle of his eyebrows. “If you know what I mean.”

“Oh god, ew,” Bev makes an expression like she’s sucking on a lemon. “I’m going to pretend this conversation never happened.”

Eddie glances at Patty, who’s now collecting her bags, rental keys in hand. “Who knew Stan had game?” he says, pulling up his suitcase’s handle with a click.

“Everyone,” Richie replies. “Literally, Stan had more game than any of us. Don’t you remember? His parents sent him to that sleepaway camp, and he came back with a ring of hickies around the base of his neck.”

Eddie huffs, squinting into the distance, trying to remember something that’s nothing but a blur.

“He looked like he’d been mauled by a vampire,” Richie adds.

Eddie leans on his suitcase as he stretches his legs, cramped by the short flight. “What was the girl’s name?”

“He didn’t tell us,” Richie says. “He kept insisting it was poison ivy. Didn’t fool me for a second,” Richie reminisces, smiling. “I know exactly what a poison ivy rash looks like. Up close and personal, unfortunately.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Eddie mutters. He winces, rubbing his forehead at the onset of a sudden, splitting headache. It hurts so much he can feel it in the base of his neck.

“I ran afoul of a patch, and you pulled off all my clothes.” Richie leers. “You really wanted me naked. Guess some things never change.” Richie adds a lascivious waggle of his eyebrows.

Eddie clenches his jaw, squeezing his eyes shut against the blinding light. His head is so heavy. It’s like pieces of lead are being shoved in his ears, deep into his brain.

He distantly feels a hand touch his forearm, and Richie’s voice comes from far away, “Are you okay? Bev, he doesn’t look okay.”

“Eddie?” Bev says worriedly, muffled and wrong. “Don’t fight it. Let it roll over you.”

Eddie nods his head, but that just makes him dizzy. He takes a deep breath, and does as Bev says. He stops fighting and lets the pain wash over him. It’s like lying on a cold beach as the tide comes in. The water scheeches in his ears, encroaching further and further up his neck, then his chin, threatening to drown him. But then in one rush it goes over his face, and he no longer feels like he’s swimming in sand. As the headache fades away, a wave of clarity comes splashing through.

He opens his eyes to see a worried Richie and Bev staring back at him.

“I sprayed you with the garden hose, you buffoon,” Eddie says roughly, recalling a memory of a red, itchy,  _ crying  _ Richie. “And I wore dish gloves to smear an entire bottle of calamine on you. That’s the least sexy thing in the world. Also, we were both ten.”

The look of relief that comes over Richie’s face is the sweetest Eddie’s seen. He’s thrown so completely, he can only blink. Bev grabs his hand, and slowly, like he’s made of molasses he turns to look at her.

“I felt it on the plane,” she says with a tired smile, shaking her head. “It ran me over like a semi.”

“That’s why you were in the bathroom so long?” Richie asks. “I thought you were taking a huge du—”

“We used to run together,” Bev says to Eddie. Her eyes shine, excitement lighting her from the inside out. “Up and down Canal Street. I started off timing you, but eventually you got me running too.” She looks away, a little wrinkle between her brows. “My legs were so much longer than yours, but somehow you always beat my time.”

“What can I say, I’ve always been good at running away,” Eddie says softly, but he doesn’t remember. Her smile is quick to fall in disappointment.

“But mostly running forward,” Richie quickly adds, turning to Bev. “Did he ever tell you about the time he saved me from a rogue champagne cork? Didn’t hesitate, he just took me down in zero point five, flat on my back.” Richie bites his lip. “He’s been knocking me flat on my back ever since.”

“Richie,” Eddie chastises, feeling himself flush up to his ears.

“You two…” Bev trails off, chuckling under her breath. Shouldering her bag, she says, “C’mon, let’s go say hi to Patty.”

Through the window that looks onto the hangars, lightning cracks across the sky. Turbulent clouds swirl high above the airport. The runway is completely backed up. When they got off the plane, the sky had been clear for as far as the eye could see. Eddie’s never heard of a typhoon making landfall in Maine, and it’s too early in the year for it to be a hurricane. When Sandy hit New York, the garage and the first floor of their apartment building flooded. They were lucky, their neighbour parked on the street, and a tree landed on his car.

Eddie eyes the spinning clouds. He’s tempted to suggest they hunker down in the airport until it passes.

“Patrica Uris?”

Patty jolts and whirls around, a hand flying out to steady herself on her roller suitcase’s handle. It’s nice to know Eddie isn’t the only one who packs expecting the worst.

“It’s so nice to meet you, I’m Beverly Marsh. I love your earrings, by the way. What are those, rubies? Beautiful.” In retrospect, Bev’s always been better at talking with new clients than he ever was. She’s a charmer, through and through.

Patty touches her ears like she doesn’t know she’s doing it. Those earrings are the same pink ones Stan picked out in that department store months ago. Her eyes fly from Bev, to Richie, then settle on him. All traces of confusion disappear in an instant.

“You’re him. You’re Eddie,” Patty says in a soft tone. “You saved my husband’s life.”

Eddie grimaces. Stan saved himself. There was a part of him that didn’t want to die, and that’s why he called. Eddie didn’t do shit. He talked down a man from jumping off a cliff when he’d already stepped back from the edge. There are no heroes in stories like Stan’s, only narrowly avoided tragedies.

“How’d you know he was Eddie?” Richie asks with a grin. “I could be Eddie for all you know.”

“I looked you up.” She tucks her hair behind her ear, fingers lingering to hide her face.

“We did the same,” Eddie admits, laying all the cards on the table. Is it stalking if both parties do it? Eddie glances at Bev and sees a faint smile on her lips. “We’re fans of your Ghostbusters costume.”

“I ran a full background check on you,” Patty says, cheeks pinking.

Eddie pauses for a moment. He’s run background checks many times in the past, and even with a rush order it’s a minimum one week waiting for civilians. “You ran a background check on me and it took two days?” He shakes his head, bewildered. Honestly, he still can’t believe it’s only been two days since his world was turned upside down. It feels like he’s aged a century.

Patty frowns. “It took two weeks. I ran it after Stan got back from New York. He said he met an old friend… why do you look so shocked?”

“I didn’t think he remembered me,” Eddie stares at her with wide eyes. “I sure as hell didn’t remember him.” He still doesn’t if he’s being honest.

Bev rests a hand on his forearm, quietly taking charge. “We have some sort of memory disorder, and we assumed Stan was the same,” Bev says. “If Eddie and I go days without being in contact, we forget each other. We barely have any recollection of our childhood.”

“That doesn’t sound like any disorder I’ve heard of before,” Patty interjects, and Eddie supposes she would know, being the only person in this conversation with a doctorate. “Do you forget other people, or is it just each other?”

“Each other,” Bev says.

Patty shakes her head, lips pursed. “I’m no expert, but whatever that is, it has to be psychological. There must be some sort of trauma in your past…” She trails off, expression turning from confusion to something else. She looks at Eddie. “Stan didn’t remember you until he got home.”

A flare of brightness bursts across the sky, and lightning strikes the runway with a bright flash.

“He wouldn’t stop talking about you, but as the days went on, he seemed to forget more and more,” Patty says flatly. “He was quieter. He seemed scared. That’s when I ran the background check, but you don’t have a criminal record, and only a couple of parking violations.”

Richie clasps him on the shoulder. “You’re telling me Speedy Gonzales here doesn’t have a single speeding ticket to his name?” he asks, lightening the gloomy mood so even Patty smiles.

Eddie rolls his eyes. “I drove you around for months and didn’t kill you, did I?”

“I don’t know how to break this to you, Eddie old sport,” Richie says sarcastically. “But not killing someone does not a good driver make.”

"You're not mad?" Patty asks. "About the background check, I mean."

Eddie shakes his head, giving her a reassuring smile. "I would have done the same in your shoes."

Patty nods back, her relief evident.

“Awesome,” Bev says, shoving herself between Richie and him, throwing an arm around each of their waists. “We should rent a car before they’re all blown away.” To Patty, she adds, “We’ll see you at the restaurant?”

“Yeah. Personally, I can’t wait to meet this Mike Hanlon.” A steely look forms in Patty’s eye, fingers clamping tight around her suitcase handle.

“Where are you staying?” Bev asks curiously. “We have rooms at the Town House.”

“Fancy.” Patty’s frown smoothes into something like resignation. “I’m at the Holiday Inn.” She shrugs. “I have a points card.”

"Do you ever get this looming sense of dread that starts up in your chest like bad heartburn, then plummets down to your stomach until you puke it all up?” Richie asks around a mouthful of granola. “It grabs you by the ankles, pulling you into a tiny place that—for all laws of space and physics—you should not be able to fit into?"

"I know exactly what you're talking about," Bev says, slamming shut the rental's door. The driver's side sticks a bit, but beggars can't be choosers. Turns out Patty snagged the last good car in the fleet. "That's cosmic dread," Bev continues, leaning against the side of the car, studying the building in front of them. It's probably colonial; old and dusty, but then again, all things in Derry are. "We discussed it at a book club meeting a few weeks back."

"What the hell kind of books are you reading in your book club?" Richie asks, practically falling out of the backseat.

"More importantly," Eddie says, popping the trunk, unloading their bags onto the blacktop. The tar hasn't been resurfaced in a while. Cracks run through it like a broken mirror, weeds popping up here and there. He stares at a bright yellow dandelion, then turns to frown at Bev. "How the fuck did you find time to join a book club?"

Bev pats him on the cheek, then bends to snag her bag from the pile. "Don't hate my scheduling game just because you have none." She strides off without a care in the world.

“I’ll have you know I’m a whiz with Excel!” Eddie calls after her, but she’s gone, disappeared into the building.

“You can hear yourself, right?” Richie asks blandly, shoving a crinkly granola wrapper in his chinos’ pocket.

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Suck my dick.”

Richie smirks, tonguing his inner cheek suggestively. “Gladly.”

No dicks get sucked in the parking lot that day. The front desk is a ghost town, and no one appears after Eddie rings the bell over and over. Eventually, he walks around and grabs three keys from their hooks, figuring since they already paid for the rooms it doesn't count as trespassing.

Spot treatment applied, and zit covered by a dab of concealer, he unpacks his clothes into the wardrobe—an antique with a warped mirror inside—when his door opens and Richie sticks his head in.

“You should see the clawfoot tub in my bathroom. It’s big enough for two.” He waggles his eyebrows, coming inside and shutting the door after himself. He leans against it, looking Eddie up and down. Eddie’s still wearing his clothes from the flight. It hits him then that Richie’s never seen him dressed so casually.

“If you want Legionnaires' disease, go right ahead.” Eddie frowns at the deep creases on a few of his shirts. “And I’m sure you can find someone else to breathe in a lungful of bacteria with you.”

The room’s nice, all things considered. Eddie checked the mattress and baseboards for bed bugs, found none, and also didn’t see a single rat dropping. A clothes iron sits on a shelf of antiques above the bed, and is a chunk of actual iron that a hundred years ago some poor overworked housewife probably used to press her shitty husband’s trousers, so it’s a good thing he brought along his steamer. The only real problem is the radiator, which has the tendency to rattle and creak.

He nearly jumps a foot in the air when a cold finger runs down the back of his neck. He looks into the wardrobe mirror, only to find Richie wearing an expression like he found god among the hairs on his neck.

Eddie makes an involuntary noise in the back of his throat, prompting Richie to make eye contact. It’s so over-the-top intense, Eddie’s taken aback.

“You used to have a mole, right here.” Richie touches him again, and Eddie shivers.

“Get your cold hands off me.” Eddie waves Richie back, turning around. He shuts the wardrobe, hands braced against the wood, because if he didn’t keep them there he’d wrap them around Richie, and that damn  _ look _ he’s sending in Eddie’s direction is too dangerous for physical contact. “It was removed when I was a teenager...” Eddie trails off.

“Why?” Richie says. He sounds so wistful. He’s standing there looking at Eddie, but really, he’s looking beyond him, to a boy he remembers.

“It was precancerous,” Eddie says quietly in between creaks from the radiator.  _ How did you remember? How did you know? _ They’re completely different questions, but Eddie means both of them when he asks, “How...?”

Richie’s brows furrow, contemplating the question with much more solemnity than he normally would. It’s surprising because Eddie barely ever sees this side of Richie.

“I used to stare at your neck a lot.” Richie reaches out again, but this time Eddie sees him coming. He doesn’t flinch, he just lets it happen. Richie’s hands are burning cold as he touches his jaw, gently turning Eddie’s head to the side. Eddie dares not breathe. He’s so afraid of their history and the things buried in the depths of his head. “I used to stare at you a lot... I still do.”

This damn town is a glass of milk, and his memory’s a sinking oreo, getting soggier and soggier the longer he's here. Eddie's going to have to make sense of it all, or he’ll be left behind with no idea of what’s going on. How is remembering so easy for Richie, when for him it feels like getting whacked over the head with a crowbar?

"You're freezing," Eddie says, rational observance against Richie’s sentiment, because that's what Eddie does. He runs away when the going gets tough. Richie thinks he understands him, even thinks he’s brave. But Eddie’s bravery is dependent on the mask he put between himself and the outside world. Sure Eddie would take a bullet for a complete stranger, but he’s never been true to his own feelings.

Eddie must be broadcasting his discomfort, because Richie drops his hand.

“It’s cold as shit in my room,” Richie says flatly. “The radiator’s broken.” Eddie’s radiator chooses that moment to whistle like a kettle. “And yours is on the brink.”

“Bring your stuff here, you can stay with me,” Eddie offers up casually, cool as a cucumber.

“If you’re sure?” Richie sounds so vulnerable, even though it was Eddie’s suggestion.

Shame sets in like an ugly weight. Richie’s trying, but Eddie keeps pushing him away.

A sharp knock sounds on the door, and Bev calls out from the other side, “We're leaving in ten, guys.”

Eddie glances out the window. The rain has just stopped falling, but water still drips off the eavestrough. With the rain, the sun has also disappeared, set over the horizon. They’re meeting the group at nine. He checks his watch. It’s eight-thirty now, but Bev likes to be early, a habit she picked up from him.

"I should get my stuff." Richie throws a thumb over his shoulder, moving to the door. 

“Wait—” Eddie grabs at his hips, pulling him back. He finds Richie’s mouth easily, then drags his lips up to his cheek, standing on his tiptoes so he can reach. Squeezing his eyes shut, he lets his lips linger against Richie’s skin, nose in his hairline. Richie’s breathing picks up, but he stays completely still, letting Eddie do what he wants.

Richie uses drug store shampoo, he never moisturizes, and his loose hair tickles Eddie’s nose, but he smells so damn good. He smells like Richie. Something that is so intrinsically him. Eddie’s heart clenches as he wordlessly begs Richie’s patience.

“Not that I’m not enjoying this,” Richie says eventually. “But you’re going to get a crick in your neck, and you  _ will  _ bitch about it all through dinner.”

Eddie smiles. He licks up Richie’s cheek, laughing when he pushes him away, sputtering as he wipes his face. Richie looks down at his hand, then back up at Eddie, then back down at his hand. The pure bewilderment on his face is enough to send Eddie into stitches.

The Jade of The Orient is like every buffet Eddie has visited, which is to say it’s completely unique because Eddie isn’t about to ruin his digestive system buying into the buffet hype. People think it’s a good deal, but humans aren’t hamsters able to shove their food in a separate pouch for later. It all goes down at once, meaning these poor schmucks are going to have  _ problems  _ come morning.

“Hanlon,” Bev tells the hostess who scans her book for the reservation.

“You’re early,” she says. “The rest of your party hasn’t arrived, but the room is free.”

“Room?” Bev asks.

Turns out Mike booked them an entire room, fish tank included. They gather around it instead of the empty table. It’s weird to sit down at a restaurant table when not eating, and it’s rude to eat when the others aren’t here, so fish tank it is.

“My neighbour has one of these built into the wall of his house,” Richie says, peering at a yellow fish with massive lips. “He likes to stand in front of it completely naked when the Starline buses come around.”

Slowly, Bev turns to look at Richie. “Do you live next to Nicholas Cage?” she asks, but before Richie can answer, a gasp sounds from behind them, and they’re hit with two hundred pounds of octopus. Eddie’s face ends up squashed against Bev’s in a parody of his earlier embrace with Richie.

“I missed you guys so much,” Mike gushes, his chin on Eddie’s shoulder. His big hand rests in the middle of his back and Eddie’s flung back in time to those same big hands grabbing him under the armpits, lifting him up like it’s nothing at all.

“Can’t breathe, Mike,” Richie huffs.

Mike pulls away, a bashful smile on his face. “I’m so glad you guys came.” He claps Eddie on the shoulder.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” The words catch in Eddie’s dry throat, and he’s surprised that he actually means it. Seeing Mike is so different from hearing his voice on the phone. In person, he’s real. He’s the boy Eddie once knew. On the phone he was just a stranger dangling a carrot on a stick. Here, he’s a friend.

“Holy shit, is that Big Bill?” Richie exclaims, pushing past them. Eddie peers around Mike, only to see Richie with his arm thrown around an exasperated man’s shoulders. “Although, I suppose we should be calling you Little Bill from now on.”

"Shut up, Trashmouth."

Holy shit.  _ Bill. _ He looks… short.

“And to think I freaked out when I found grey hair among my luscious locks.” Richie tweaks one of Bill's curls. "This guy's all salt and pepper."

“If Bill’s salt and pepper, what does that make me?” A voice gravelly and deep says as a tall man steps into the room, hands shoved in his pockets, sheepish, when he has no reason to be. He belongs on the cover of a magazine. Or maybe a billboard.

“Shut the fuck up! Ben, is that you?” Bev blurts out, staring at tall, dark and handsome with nothing short of surprise. Eddie can’t blame her. The years have treated Ben well. Better than the rest of them for sure.

“Shit, Haystack,” Richie throws in, eyes wide behind his glasses. “You’re hot.”

Ben blushes, shuffling his feet, and Eddie can almost picture a smaller boy with red cheeks, sun shining through his brown hair, staring at Bev with hearts in his eyes.

Bill claps his hands together, startling Eddie out of his thoughts. “Is that all of us? The Losers Club finally reunited?”

"We're just waiting on Patty," Eddie says, peering at the door, wondering why she hasn't arrived yet.

Bill’s eyebrows scrunch together. "Who?"

"Stan's wife," Bev explains.

Bill blinks slowly. “Stan. S-st-Stan Uris,” he stutters at the same time that Ben says, “Stanley! Is he coming too?”

Eddie winces. “About that…”

Devastation is written plain across Mike’s face. His voice cracks when he asks what time Stan attempted suicide. Turns out it was only half an hour after he called. None of them blame him, but it’s plain to see Mike blames himself.

Richie tries to break the tension by throwing out one of his many jokes, and for a while it seems to work, but then the mood falls again. Eventually, Bill’s stomach growls so loud they decide to forego waiting for Patty, and just grab a bite to eat.

Eddie’s heading back to the room with a sensible serving of food—and three king crab legs because he couldn’t resist—when he spots movement through the latticework, and then a familiar blonde head.

“Hey,” Patty says from the seventh and final seat. The seat meant for her husband.

“Hey, yourself.” Eddie sits down beside her. He leans over to give her a one-armed hug that she gladly accepts. “You get lost on the way here?”

Patty chuckles, shrugging helplessly. “I think the GPS in my rental is broken. It took me all the way around town. I finally had to stop and ask for directions.”

“So very nineties of you,” Eddie says, picking up his chopsticks. He gestures to his plate. “Want some?”

Patty shakes her head. “I’m not hungry.” She bites her lip.

“What’s on your mind?” Eddie asks, popping a piece of chicken in his mouth.

“It’s weird, but there’s this house on the edge of town, and the GPS kept insisting it was the restaurant.” She shakes her head. “But I’m not stupid, I wasn’t about to enter a deathtrap expecting some secret speakeasy.”

Suddenly the chicken feels like dust on his tongue. He tries to swallow, but it’s like eating a spoonful of cinnamon; desiccating and nauseatingly sweet. Eddie coughs, and the chunk goes flying out of his mouth. He hacks, coughing up a lung. “Fuck, sorry.”

“I take it you know the place,” Patty says with a wry smile that’s more like a grimace.

Eddie barks out a bitter laugh, clutching his right arm so tightly he’ll probably leave behind dents in his skin. “I think I do actually. I’d tell you to avoid it, but you have more than enough common sense.”

“Oh.” Eddie glances over his shoulder and sees Mike hovering behind them, clutching an overflowing plate close to his chest. “You must be Patty,” he says tremulously.

“You must be Mike.” Patty tips her head to the side, her expression unreadable. “I want to tell you something.”

“What is it?” Mike squirms, even as he rounds the table to his seat, he takes the long way around Eddie’s side. Patty’s gaze follows him the entire time.

“It’s not your fault,” she says simply, easily.

Mike stays silent at that, but his relief is plain in the immediate slump of his shoulders.

“Stan didn’t want me coming here,” Patty says conversationally, grabbing the teapot from the centre of the table, pouring herself a cup. “Made me promise that I wouldn’t, in fact.” She shrugs. “But I didn’t listen to him, so here I am.”

“Why did you come?” Mike asks, as Eddie looks between the two of them.

“These last few days in the hospital, my husband would not shut up about six people he’s never spoken of before.” Patty leans back in her creaking chair. “I wanted to see what the hype was all about.”

When the fortune cookies start to rattle, at first, Eddie thinks it’s an earthquake. Later, as a winged cookie flies straight for his and Ben’s faces, and Richie yells his name at the top of his lungs, Eddie recalls a memory of earthquake drills when he was a kid. His teachers used to make them crouch under their flimsy desks, despite the fact that a single cinder block could crush the plywood tops to pieces.

Sometimes safety isn't about actually being safe, but the illusion of it.

“What the hell is going on?” Patty whimpers, clutching her arms to her chest as the waitress runs off to get their check and, considering the state of the room, probably security.

“Pennywise,” Bev says, face pale as a ghost. She turns to stare at Mike, her look of betrayal is plain as day. “That’s why you brought us back. For that fucking clown.”

“We made a promise,” Mike stammers.

Eddie’s dragging his suitcase down the Town House steps when he spots Bev and Richie in the lounge, by the bar. He didn't exactly have the time to pack everything properly, so the contents of his bag rattle when he drops it on the last step. They look up in surprise.

He leaves his bag, and slides onto the free barstool. “Mike and Bill have fucked off who knows where, but Bill’s stuff is still in his room.”

“You looked in his room?” Bev asks.

“The key is right there,” he says, pointing to the front desk, feeling argumentative. “What kind of inn leaves the room keys out in the open for anyone to take? It’s a security nightmare. Fuck.”

It feels like he hasn’t had a good rest in weeks. Eddie rubs his thumbs over the headache brewing in his temples. Richie and Bev are uncharacteristically silent, so he turns his head to get a proper look at them. Bev, if anything, seems even more scared than she did at the restaurant. Richie, though, he just looks guilty.

“What were you two talking about?” Eddie asks suspiciously.

Richie clears his throat, then abruptly turns around to grab a bottle of whiskey off the wall, pouring himself more than a few fingers. He takes a long swig from his glass then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He passes the bottle to Bev. “I know we made a wordless pact to never speak about what we saw in the alley that night at the risk of sounding completely insane, but I just told Bev.”

Shivers run up and down the back of his neck making his hair stand on end. “The alley,” Eddie repeats, trying to swallow the billiard-sized lump in his throat. The monster in the alley that was stalking Richie for years. A chill nips at his neck, and he slaps his hand over the cold skin.

“Are you guys okay?” Ben asks, appearing in the doorway. The first thing Eddie notices is that he doesn’t have his luggage with him. The second, is Patty at his back, her mouth a thin line. “We’ve been talking.” Ben gestures between him and Patty. He shakes his head. “We aren’t leaving.”

“I called Stan,” Patty says. She drops into one of the lounge’s squishy armchairs like the weight of the world is pushing her down. “I asked about his nightmares.” She takes a deep breath, and looks right at Eddie. “He’s been dreaming about you guys. Has been for years, but before, the people were faceless, nameless. He said he keeps seeing you die.” Tears bloom in her eyes, slipping down her cheeks. “He saw himself die in a bathtub years ago and never told me about it.” Her voice cracks, bottom lip quivering.

“I never had any nightmares,” Eddie says, and Bev looks at him sharply in the middle of pouring a glass of whiskey. It nearly overflows, but she rights the bottle just in time. “About you guys, I mean. I’ve never seen you die.”

“Stan was caught in the Deadlights,” Mike says, appearing out of nowhere, Bill at his side.

“Where did you guys go?” Bev asks suspiciously, leaning over the bar top, she holds out the overfull glass to Patty who accepts it with a nod.

Bill huffs, folding his arms over his chest. “Mike  _ microdosed  _ me on a root with special p-properties, told me he stole an artefact from Native Americans, then sent me on a non-consensual vision quest.”

“Wait,” Ben says to Mike, sounding eerily like a disappointed parent. “You  _ stole  _ something from Native Americans?”

“And he drugged me,” Bill repeats, stuck on that half of the equation.

“Hey, you know who microdoses? Ziggy,” Richie slurs, his glass of whiskey significantly more empty than it was before. “He is perpetually an inch from being high as a kite, and when he isn’t, he  _ is _ high as a kite.” Richie lifts his glass at Mike in a toast. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Eddie waves his hand in the air. “We’ve all been nonconsensually drugged before…”

“Uh, no, Eds,” Bev interrupts, frowning deeply. “We haven’t.”

“...but can we go back to the Deadlights?” Eddie says to Mike. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You already know,” Mike says sadly. “You just forgot.”

The memory comes out of nowhere and clocks him over the head. One moment he is blissfully unaware, the next he sees a floating boy with curly hair, surrounded by dead children, eyes white and rolled back in his head.

"It took Stan," Richie murmurs. “Because Bev hurt it, and Stan was the weakest.”

“Fuck you,” Patty hisses, teeth bared. “My husband is not  _ weak. _ He is sad, and he is hurting, but that’s not weakness.” She rubs her fingers over her eyes. “That’s depression.”

“Shit.” Richie runs a shaking hand through his hair. “I’m drunk, my adjective choices aren’t the best. That’s not what I meant. I’m saying he was always the most scared of it. That’s why it took him.”

Patty wipes the tears from her cheeks. “You think you’ll get away if you leave, but you won’t. This monster haunting you won’t stop until you’re dead.” She turns to look up at Mike, who holds her gaze. “Mike is right, we have to kill it. To keep Stan safe. So all of you are safe.”

“The Ritual of Chüd,” Mike says seriously, shuffling back and forth in front of the fireplace like he can’t keep still. “The Shokopiwah. The first ones who fought it. They have a saying; ‘all living things must abide by the laws of the shape they inhabit.’”

“Well if it worked for them, why isn’t it dead?” Eddie points out. Mike skids to a stop, his skin blanching. “Exactly.”

Richie leans over the bar top, eyes wide. “So you’re saying this ritual will trap it?”

Mike nods. “In a way.”

Richie bobs his head. “Fine. Why don’t we just do what Bev did? Drive an iron spike through its head.” He gesticulates a stabbing motion. “She hurt it so bad it got desperate and took Stan.” He throws a thumb over his shoulder at Bev. “The wonder twins know how to use guns. I say we do the ritual, then fuckin’ light it up. Turn it into clown soup.”

“I didn’t bring a gun with me to a reunion,” Eddie hisses, clenching his fists at his side, terrified by the easy way Richie talks about confronting that  _ thing. _ Like they can just shoot it and it will confidently die.

“I did,” Bev admits, shrugging when Eddie stares at her. “I travel light, but I always pack the essentials.”

“We flew here,” Eddie sputters. “Over state lines.”

Bev shrugs again, pours herself a shot, then sends it down the hatch. “I have a permit.”

“What do we have to do for this ritual?” Ben asks softly, bent over with his hands clenched together like he’s praying. “How do we make it work?”

“You have to remember,” Mike says like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“Hold up.” Richie lifts his hand. “I’m assed.” He points to Bev. “She’s assed.” Then to Patty. “And she’s getting there.” He gestures wildly at Bill who is red in the face and starting to sweat. “He still looks like he’s riding high on magic shrooms—” When Mike opens his mouth, Richie corrects himself. “Sorry, a root with ‘special properties.’ I say we sleep on this, then wake up bright and late to relive our special childhood traumas. Who’s with me?”

Nearly everyone echoes their agreement, but Mike shakes his head. “The cycle will end soon,” he starts, but then takes a look around the room at the collection of tired faces. “But a few hours couldn’t hurt.”

Eddie deposits his suitcase at the foot of the bed. He doesn’t bother unpacking it again before hopping into the shower. Honestly, screw wrinkles in his clothes and screw steaming them away.

Patty didn’t go back to the Holiday Inn; he saw her dragging her bag into Bev’s room. Good. It’s better if they all stick close together.

Richie hung back to talk with Mike while everyone else shuffled up the stairs. The last glimpse he caught of them, Mike was leaning in, nodding as Richie spoke. They seemed so serious, even Richie, who normally cracks jokes when faced with life-threatening situations. Whatever he said to Mike put neither of them in a joking mood.

Eddie’s just finished soaping himself up when the door to the bathroom opens and shuts. He peeks through a gap in the curtain, only to see Richie pulling his shirt over his head, throwing it at his feet.

“What did he say?” Eddie asks, blinking water out of his lashes as Richie unbuttons his pants, kicking them off his long legs. Eddie swallows and shifts, turning up the heat in the shower so the room steams faster. Richie likes it hot.

“Mike thinks the thing we saw in the alley is a shapeshifter, like the clown.” Richie hops on one leg, then the other, taking off his socks. “But he doesn’t think it’s as old.”

Eddie frowns. “What does age have to do with anything?”

“Hibernation.” Richie pulls his underwear off, tossing on top of his clothes. “My stalker’s been picking off people who worked on  _ SuburBBQ  _ for years, but the clown is only active for a little while before it has to hibernate.”

“That thing backed off once it knew Pennywise was awake,” Eddie practically whispers, too distracted by the sight of Richie bare as bare can be except for one thing.

“Mike thinks it was scared.” Richie folds his glasses, laying them on the edge of the sink. “He’s been studying the fossil record under Derry. Apparently the clown barebacked an asteroid, and crash landed on earth millions of years ago.”

“Thanks for the imagery,” Eddie murmurs, holding open the curtain so Richie can climb in. He stands chest to chest with him as the water rains down on both of them. Something curls down Eddie’s spine, all the way to his legs, nipping at his heels as he lifts his head to look up at Richie.

Richie pushes his wet hair back with his hands. “Glad to be of service.”

He grabs Eddie’s body wash, squeezing too much into his cupped palm. Perfunctorily lathering it up, he runs his hands all over his body. It’s plain to see how much bigger than Eddie he is; naked and so very close. The water pressure isn’t the greatest. Not like in Richie’s apartment where they could shower together without inconvenience. Here, Eddie’s back and legs grow cold as Richie gets most of the hot spray. But it helps when he drops those big hands to Eddie’s hips, then around to his back, massaging more soap onto his skin.

Eddie takes a deep breath. “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but our circumstances have obviously changed.”

Richie freezes in the middle of pushing Eddie under the spray to wash the soap off. “Tell me what?”

“Remember the DNA I pulled off the mailers?” Eddie drops his hands to Richie’s chest, combing fingers through his forest of hair. “I sent it to a lab?”

“Yeah?” Richie tilts his head to the side. “I figured nothing came back since whatever it is, it isn’t human.”

Eddie chews on his inner cheek. “The DNA was human and male, and the genetic information indicated that it has Huntington’s.”

“What the fuck,” Richie breathes, blinking water out of his eyes.

Eddie nods. “Yeah, exactly.”

“That means Mike is right, doesn’t it? When these things take a form, they become that form, right down to the DNA. So this Ritual of Chode—”

“Chüd.” Eddie smiles.

“Chüd, whatever. It could work.” Richie grins toothily. “We do the mumbo jumbo, we trap it, Bev shoots it, it dies, and then we’re free. All we have to do is not die in the meantime.” Richie’s mouth flattens into a thin line. “Great. That makes it sound so easy.”

Eddie reaches up and takes Richie’s cheek, staring right into his eyes, dark in the dim bathroom light. “We can do this. I believe in all of us, and I believe in you.”

Richie shivers, gazing at him with some unreadable emotion. He ducks his head then, pressing a hard kiss to Eddie’s lips. Eddie caves, letting Richie push him against the wall, the shower tap digging into his back. Richie cups his jaw and Eddie lifts his chin for easier access. Their mouths press together, Eddie’s open wide, tasting the cheap whiskey on Richie’s tongue.

“Are you still drunk?” Eddie pulls back.

“Buzzed,” Richie answers, peppering kisses all along his ear. “But I can say no if I want to.” His hand slides down Eddie’s body to his thigh, and he tugs Eddie’s leg up so he can feel just how interested he is. “I’m not saying no. Are you?”

“No,” Eddie quickly says. “I’m saying yes.”

Richie smiles and his eyes crinkle in the corners, more evident without his glasses. It’s not the first time Eddie’s thought him beautiful, but now it hits him like it’s never hit him before.

Richie reaches around Eddie and turns the shower off, pushing the curtain back. Goosebumps rise all over his skin in the cold air as they stumble out of the tub, grabbing towels from the rack, drying off as quickly as they can while actively groping the other to moderate success.

Richie shoves his glasses back on his face and Eddie grabs his toiletries bag off the counter, and then they’re in the bedroom. In a move Eddie learned in a gym years ago, he sweeps Richie’s legs out from under him, taking him wide-eyed to bed.

Prep goes by in the blink of the eye with Richie between his legs, sucking him off, his glasses knocked askew. Condom wrappers scratch Eddie’s ass cheek as he gets one finger and then another, his hands fisted in Richie’s damp hair. Eventually Richie peels the rubbers off his fingers and Eddie’s dick, throwing them over the side of the bed where someone will inevitably step on them.

Richie rolls a fresh condom down on himself, then practically folds Eddie in half, pressing into him, splitting him right in two while trying to kiss him at the same time. Eddie responds by wrapping his legs around Richie’s hips, and throwing his arms around his shoulders. He’s going to hurt tomorrow, but at the moment, as he takes Richie to the root, he can’t give a single fuck.

It’s only a few minutes later when he’s red in the face and his thighs ache like he’s run a marathon that he squeezes the back of Richie’s neck.

“Get off me,” he says, scratching his nails through Richie’s hair, surprised by how sweet and affectionate he sounds. “My legs are cramping.”

Richie stares down at him, and there it is again. That unknowable look that has Eddie’s heart hammering away in his chest.

Richie presses against him, kissing him, deeply, with teeth. Thrusting in him, once, twice, he pulls out. Eddie’s lips tingle; wet and nearly numb.

Richie rolls him over on his front, kissing the back of his neck. Eddie presses his hot face to the cold headboard as Richie mouths across his shoulder blades. He digs his fingers into Eddie’s sides, touching him, and touching him some more.

Richie ends his exploration by spreading Eddie apart and sinking his cock into him again.

Eddie’s eyes go wide, and it’s so good, so amazing, so right as Richie fills him up completely, a laugh rips from his throat, turning into a moan as he claws at the sheets, yanking them off the mattress. Eddie’s losing his mind, adrift in sensation as Richie fucks him. His arms shake and he drops down, burying his face in the pillow, lifting his hips higher, biting the fabric to keep himself quiet.

All the while he can hear the little grunts Richie’s making and the way he whines, like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. Fingertips dig into his hips, and drops of sweat fall from Richie to his back as his hips snap. Eddie reaches down, searching, and when he finds what he’s looking for Richie welcomes him easily, folding their sweaty hands together.

“Fuck,” Eddie curses, begs, his voice barely recognizable; too rough and fucked out. “Jesus, fuck, Richie.  _ Touch me.” _

But before Richie can give him a reach around, Eddie squeezes his eyes shut and comes gasping into the pillow. Richie’s hips stutter and then he’s pressing into Eddie so deep he swears he can feel him in his throat. Eddie’s vision blurs as teeth dig into the muscles of his shoulder. Not hard enough to do damage, but enough that Eddie’s well aware of their presence, limp as he is.

“Shit,” Richie murmurs after some time, his forehead pressed against Eddie’s back. “Did I hurt you?”

Right now, Eddie couldn’t make intelligible words come out of his mouth if he tried, so he just grunts and hopes that gets across everything he’s feeling.

Richie pulls out of him, making him wince. Yeah, he’s going to be feeling that tomorrow.

Eddie tries to roll on his back, but that’s not happening, so he settles for his side. He watches Richie climb out of bed, eyeing his lovely thighs as he disposes of the condoms. His skin is so pink, Eddie wonders if his own backside is the same shade.

He gets cold quickly as the sweat dries on his skin, but he’s too exhausted to take another shower. Eddie makes room for Richie when he comes back to bed, the lights flicked off. It’s raining again, Eddie can hear the drops pinging off the aluminium roof.

Richie curls around him, face to face, a hand on Eddie’s elbow, the other shoved under his head. Their knees touch under the blankets. As Eddie slowly falls asleep, fingers stroke gently through his hair.

He dreams of sticky spider webs wrapped around his body, and glowing yellow eyes in the near distance.


	15. Derry, 2016

A shaft of late morning sun peeks from the room’s south-easterly window. It’s nearing ten, they need to get up soon, but the warmth of their tangled legs and Richie’s other hand rubbing up and down his flank has his lashes fluttering, threatening to send him back to sleep.

Richie picks up Eddie’s index finger, studying his nails. His voice, when it comes, is lazy from sleep. “Jesus, do you get manicures, how are your nails so neat?”

“It’s called personal grooming,” Eddie mutters, squinting against the brightness. Fuck, his right ear itches insistently. If he has hair growing out of it, at his age, he’s going to lose his shit.

“Is that so,” Richie teases. “You’re just a pampered house cat, aren’t you?” He brings Eddie’s finger up to his mouth, kissing the pad. Eddie’s brain short circuits. “I bet you'd like it if I scratched you behind the ear.” Then he takes the entire tip in his mouth.

They don’t get the chance to find out. A sharp knock sounds on the door and Richie groans.

“Yeah?” Eddie calls nervously. He knows he locked the door, having double checked it after using the bathroom in the middle of the night. He also swiped all copies of keys from the front desk. There's no chance of anyone busting in to find Richie and him in a compromising position, short of one of the Losers knowing how to jimmy a lock.

He bets Patty knows how to lockpick. She had to have been a Girl Scout in her younger days. It must be why she didn’t run for the hills the moment that fortune cookie grew wings and flew straight for her face. Girl Scouts are tough little cookies.

“Ben’s making pancakes,” Bill’s muffled voice says. “You might want to s-s-nag some before Mike eats them all.”

“How is Mike  _ still  _ a growing boy?” Richie whispers into his neck.

There’s no way taking a shower together conserves time, so they each grab a quick one, separately. Richie lets Eddie go first, because as he so delicately puts it, Eddie took it high and not so dry last night.

In the bathroom mirror, behind a locked door, he nearly twists his neck checking for dark hairs growing out of his ears, but thankfully finds nothing of the sort.

After his shower, Eddie goes down to the dining room. He snags a stack of cooling pancakes from the breakfast bar, then joins the others at the table by the bay window. There’s more than enough space for all of them. He sits between Patty and Ben. The pancakes are blueberry, and Bev is having the time of her life scarfing down as many as she can.

Patty’s on her laptop. A quick peek finds her reading through a student’s paper, red squiggles abound. Even while staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, a teacher still needs to grade papers. Life just isn’t fair.

“Hey, Eddie?” Bill asks from the head of the table. “Do you know where Richie’s staying?” Bill stabs into a piece of perfectly cooked bacon. “I c-couldn’t find him anywhere. Is he at the Holiday Inn?”

Eddie chokes on nothing.

Bev and Patty slowly turn their heads to stare at him, eerily in sync. Bev quirks a brow, wordlessly telling him he’s going to have to dig himself out of this mess. Patty seems thoughtful. At the airport they told her that Richie was staying at the Town House. He can only imagine the conclusions she’s reached.

Eddie sticks his hands under the table in his lap, resisting the urge to tug on his collar. “Have you checked the roof with all the other gargoyles?”

“There aren’t any gar-gargoyles on the roof…”

“Good morning, muchachos and muchachas,” Richie says, choosing the perfect moment to appear in the dining room, his hair wet and dripping. Eddie bites his lip, itching to run his fingers through Richie’s hair before it tangles. Maybe one day he’ll convince Richie to smooth it back from his face. He already hides enough behind those big glasses. “I hear there are pancakes to be had.”

Richie grabs the last stack, then drops down in the seat across from Eddie. He has long enough legs that he easily hooks his foot around Eddie’s ankle, tugging on it playfully. Eddie thinks about those long legs on either side of him as he was quite literally fucked into the mattress yesterday. He wouldn’t mind dragging Richie back upstairs for another round.

He must be giving away something in the glare he shoots Richie because his cheeks pink beautifully. If he keeps looking at Eddie like that, the jig will be up. Eddie isn’t opposed to telling the Losers, but in the end it’s Richie’s decision. He isn’t out, so he has the most to lose.

“Richie,” Ben starts, head cradled in his hand like he’s awaiting juicy gossip, “Bev mentioned that you hired Eddie as your bodyguard?”

“S-s-shit, Tozier, really?” Bill says.

Richie shrugs. “Technically my manager hired him.”

“Richie met you two in New York?” Mike asks in surprise, looking up from his considerable breakfast. “And you didn’t remember each other?”

Eddie shakes his head. “Not until the night you called.”

“What did you need a bo-bodyguard for?” Bill asks, curiosity making him lean forward. “Even I don’t need a bodyguard.”

“Even you?” Patty raises her brow.

“I’m an author,” Bill explains. “And I have some  _ enthusiastic  _ fans. Once I married Audra, her fans started s-s-showing up at our gates too.”

“I still can’t believe you married Audra Phillips,” Richie says. “She’s Ziggy's second cousin, and he’s always calling her husband a total cad.”

“S-Siegfried said that?” Bill pauses and sits back in his chair like he’s rethinking everything he knows about life and the universe. “No way. He’s talking about Audra’s ex.”

“Dude, did you just call him Siegfried?” Richie says, shaking his head. “Man, no wonder he thinks you’re a cad.”

“That’s what Audra calls him!” Bill protests.

_ Cad, _ Richie mouths with a pleased as punch grin, causing Bill to fold his arms over his chest.

Ben looks between the two of them, smiling like he’s having the time of his life, and to be fair, their bickering is an oasis in a hot desert. A little levity among all the craziness.

Ben turns to Eddie as he’s cutting up his pancakes. “I’m almost afraid to ask, what is it like being his bodyguard?”

“What  _ was  _ it like you mean? My contract was void the moment we left the city.” Eddie shrugs and grins playfully. “It was like trying to keep a golden retriever from jumping ass first into the sprinklers. You always end up soaked to the bone.”

Richie sticks out his tongue. “That’s what your mom said last night.”

“Excuse me?” Bev points her fork at Richie and says, completely stone-faced, “I’ll kill you in real life, Richard.”

Richie’s hands fly up in surrender, his eyes wide. “Whoa, I forgot you guys have the same mom.”

“That’s what stopped you, asshole?” Eddie frowns, disgruntled. “You’re afraid of Bev but not me?”

Richie shrugs, then rolls up a pancake, shoving it into his mouth. He talks around his food. “She brought her gun to this little shindig. For all I know, she could have it on her right now.”

“I’m literally holding a knife.” Eddie says, holding up said knife.

“A butter knife.”

“Sharp enough to stab you with,” Eddie mutters as he sets down the knife and pours himself a glass of orange juice. And wow, that's fresh. He can picture Ben with his sleeves rolled up, wearing an apron, squeezing the hell out of some oranges. It's nice imagery to say the least.

“You and Bev are siblings?” Bill says, frowning deeply. “I d-don’t remember that?”

“Frida adopted me after my dad—” Eddie stops abruptly. Bitterness crawls up his throat like bile. The word he was going to say catches in his chest, and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t force it out.

Richie clears his throat, filling the awkward silence. “Oh man, Mr. K was the best.” A faint smile lingers on his lips like he's thinking of good times gone by. “I had the biggest crush on him.”

"What?" Eddie rasps, too shocked to even begin processing that.

"Must be why I like you so much.” Richie’s eyes brim with affection. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, if you know what I mean. Rocking hot bods must run rampant in the Kaspbrak family."

Eddie blinks, taken aback. It’s easy to misconstrue what Richie says, but in this case, his meaning can’t be taken any other way. He could spin it into a joke if he wanted, but looking into Richie’s face finds determination brewing. Eddie supposes resolve is preferable to fear.

“I used to dream about bouncing quarters off Kaspbrak asses,” Richie sighs. “Tight, shapely,  _ masculine, _ Kaspbrak asses.”

"You're g-gay?" Bill's eyebrows fly up his forehead, staring at Richie like he’s reevaluating everything he knows about him.

"Hell yeah," Richie says, his voice shaking. It's barely noticeable, but Eddie's an expert at reading Richie, and he really notices it.

Eddie reaches across the table, pushing aside the orange juice pitcher so he can take Richie's hand, squeezing it, making sure he knows he isn't alone. "Richie’s gay, and I'm bisexual," Eddie adds.

“And you’re together?” Ben chimes in, cracking a huge smile. “What are the chances of that? One in a billion? You knew each other when you were kids and found each other again as adults. It’s like the plot of a Hallmark movie.”

“They don’t make gay Hallmark movies,” Eddie says pointedly.

Bill stares at their hands. "But Richie was your client," he protests, ever the pragmatist. His eyes bounce between them, frowning in disapproval. Eddie supposes it's a good thing his questionable business practices is what Bill’s most focused on, and not the whole Richie being gay thing.

"Are you going to report me to the Better Business Bureau?"

"He should," Bev says around her cup of coffee.

“I dunno.” Patty shrugs, and gives them a faint smile. "I don’t see how their relationship might lead to an imbalanced power dynamic. It’s not like Eddie is still his bodyguard.”

“He was literally a day ago," Bev says, not bothering to hide her disapproval. "Eddie can't keep Richie safe if he's too busy chasing his ass to protect it.”

“Bev,” Eddie sighs, rubbing his forehead. “Do we have to do this here? Right now?”

“To be fair to Eddie, all of us are in extreme mortal p-peril," Bill points out, and Eddie nods, agreeing. Why not let bygones be bygones?

"I think it sounds beautiful," Ben sighs dreamily.

“Very sweet,” Mike agrees.

Bev’s lips thin, but she throws her hands up in the air, letting Eddie win this battle.

"And the only place there's a power dynamic is in the bedroom. Up top!" Richie smirks, holding up his hand for a high five. Eddie ignores him, making a point of kicking his ankle. Richie’s grin doesn’t even falter.

“Does that make Richie your boyfriend?” Ben asks, a romantic to the bone.

The others perk up. It seems everyone is fond of grand declarations, but Eddie’s sad to disappoint.

He scoffs. “No.  _ Boyfriend _ sounds so elementary,” Eddie says, at the exact same moment that Richie says, “I’d call him that.”

The silence that follows is cold enough to freeze boiling water.

Mike clears his throat. “Okay… um… well then, I guess I should go over tokens…”

Eddie stares at his plate as Mike talks. He slowly picks up his knife and fork, and returns to eating. He pointedly does not look in Richie’s direction, even though he can feel his eyes digging into his skull.

There’s a stand of dogwoods across the street.

He stares at the trees through his room window. The sight makes the back of his neck itch in that particular way unique to mid-summer afternoons when it hasn’t rained in weeks, and the air is sticky. A bead of sweat trails from his hair, down his neck. It isn’t even hot.

The dogwoods lead into a ravine by the Penobscot. If he tunes everything else out, he swears he can hear the rushing of the river as it flows on past the town. There’s something about the dogwoods, like red hot pokers emerging from the earth. Something he can’t remember.

Eddie rubs his forehead, wincing at the splitting headache brewing at his temples. It hurts like it did in the airport when he remembered. No memories come this time.

“Hey,” Richie says. He shuts the door behind him, hovering like he isn’t sure he’s welcome. 

Eddie glances at him briefly before turning back to the window. Guilt and annoyance eat away at him in equal measures. Richie’s hesitation is grating, and Eddie can’t make heads or tails of his own feelings. There’s this overwhelming sense of urgency sitting in the base of his stomach. He’s not in the mood for whatever Richie is so reluctant to discuss. Especially with this damn headache gnawing away at him.

Richie clears his throat, and seems to make a decision. He walks up to Eddie, stopping a few feet away. “So tokens, huh?” he asks, shuffling his feet awkwardly. “That fuckhead clown is really milking the circus aesthetic.”

“I guess,” Eddie mutters.

“What’s got your panties in a twist, princess?” Richie asks, his voice is light, but Eddie can detect the barest hint of irritation.

Richie brushed off the incident at breakfast like water off a duck’s bath, but it seems he’s unsatisfied with Eddie’s answer. They’ve never talked about what they are to each other, but Eddie can appreciate that this is much more than a fling. When this craziness is over—if they survive—they’re long overdue for a chat. Right now, though, it can wait.

Eddie sighs. “Tokens, like you said. Seems like a bunch of wishy washy horseshit, but I can’t explain this feeling I’m having.”

“Like something’s calling you,” Richie adds. “Yeah, we’re all feeling it. The thought of finding my token makes me want to hurl, man. It’s that cosmic dread Bev was talking about yesterday.”

“That’s not what I feel,” Eddie says, distracted.

He glances through the open wardrobe door, at the mirror inside. He sees himself, then over his shoulders, the dogwoods reflected in the warped glass. Grey buds dot the limbs of the trees, like tiny hands waving in the breeze. Urgency, that's what he feels.

“I need to go.”

“We should go together,” Richie says, reaching out for his wrist. His hand is like a shackle, holding him fast.

“What?” Eddie asks, pulling out of Richie’s grip. He backs away until his shoulders hit the window pane.

“So we can remember together.” Richie licks his lips, nervous again. “It’s just… I know what you said to the others, you think ‘boyfriends’ is a childish term, but we’re in a relationship, aren’t we?” he asks all in a rush. “We’re together. You and me. We’re a team against that fucking clown. I figured we’d fare better if we went together. Two is much better than one, amiright?”

Eddie gapes. “Why would I want that?” He winces. “Shit. I mean…” He scrubs a hand over his tired face, unable to think of a good excuse. It was badly worded, but it’s the truth. He wants to do this alone.

“I know what you meant.” Richie’s expression could only be described as hurt. But he's quick to smooth his face into a mask of indifference.

“Richie…”

“I figured I could save you the fate of falling down a manhole and finding another unwanted boyfriend among the mole people, but I guess I'll go fuck myself.”

"We haven't had this conversation," Eddie protests.

"Would talking about us matter?” Richie folds his arms over his chest, it’s more defensive than anything else. “You seem to have made up your mind."

"There are things to consider. Distance being one of them, you live in LA. And no matter what Patty said, Bev was right. I was hired for you—"

"You’re making it sound like I forced you."

"—and so, people will have assumptions about us."

Richie shakes his head. "I never said I was coming out."

Eddie freezes. He completely forgot. Just because Richie is comfortable with the Losers, doesn't mean he wants to reveal himself to the world. Eddie has dated closeted men before, and in the end coming out is their choice, not his.

Still, it goes down like a horse pill. Richie’s entire life is public. He’s a celebrity, which means that everything he does is examined through a microscope. It would be nearly impossible to have a fulfilling relationship if they’re not allowed to do something as simple as hold hands in public. Eddie’s nearly forty years old. He’s had enough sneaking around to last a lifetime.

What they have is in no way sustainable, and he’s scared that one day Richie will realize that. The hurt makes him draw in on himself. It makes him defensive.

“That’s too bad.” Eddie sneers. “What I don’t get is why you would want to be my boyfriend if we’re just gonna be a secret?”

“Uh, because our relationship isn’t for other people’s consumption, obviously,” Richie says, tacking on a wordless ‘duh’.

“That’s the whole damn point of labels.” Eddie states. “So people can make it Facebook official.”

“Wow.” Richie’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “What a healthy outlook on life,” he says, snide as snide can be. It's not a good look on him. “It’s no wonder you were single when we met.”

“Fuck you,” Eddie bites out, hiding his shame behind a bitter mask of outrage. “It’s not like you were with someone either.”

Richie laughs, throwing his head back. “I got my dick sucked not five minutes before I boarded the plane out of Miami.”

“I know.” Eddie curls his lip in a facsimile of a smile, as a sharp spike of pain pierces through his skull. “I saw the pictures.”

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Yes, Eddie swabbed the mailers, but he didn’t look at the pictures. Richie didn’t want him to see them, so he didn’t fucking look. But here he is, telling him otherwise. Eddie wants a reaction. He wants Richie to hurt like he’s making him hurt. He’s not disappointed.

Richie flinches, stepping back. The betrayal in his eyes feels like both satisfaction and a knife to the chest. It isn’t accusatory, it’s worse. Richie looks heartbroken.

All of a sudden, Eddie wants to be as far away from this conversation as possible.

"I’ve had enough. We’ll find our tokens separately," Eddie says firmly, nodding to make himself clear, wincing when it worsens his splitting headache. He glances towards the dogwoods, and the pain lessens. The blood red limbs wave in the breeze, beckoning him closer.

“But, but…” Richie stammers. The crack in his voice sounds an awful lot like fear. It almost breaks Eddie.

Before he can change his mind, he drops Richie’s arm, circling around him without a word.

“So that’s it then?” Richie spits. “You’re running away?”

Eddie pauses, but he doesn’t turn around. “You heard Mike, we have to do this alone.”

“He never said that!” Richie exclaims, and Eddie is taken aback by the vitriol in his voice. “Stop bullshitting, just tell me what you really mean!”

Richie never gets mad. It reminds Eddie that people lash out when they’re scared, and Richie’s  _ terrified. _

A wave of pain nearly knocks him off his feet. He presses his hand to the door panel, steadying himself. “Our memories are personal,” he says through gritted teeth. “We need to recover them by ourselves.”

“Funny thing is,” Richie scoffs wetly, “most of my memories are of you.”

It’s an opening for Eddie to give in and say yes, to go with Richie. Unearthing his past is sure to be a shitshow. Richie needs his support. But for Eddie, it’s the opposite. He needs to be alone to do this. He knows—deep in his gut—that if he goes with Richie, he won't get his memories back.

The problem is, he can’t seem to open his mouth to  _ explain _ his reasoning. He hurts so bad. This goddamn migraine is creeping down his spine.

“Eddie,” Richie pleads. “In New York you never let me go out alone.” Richie’s voice cracks. “I’m begging you, don’t make me do this by myself. I don’t know what’s going on, Eddie, but I don’t want to fight with you. Can’t we just talk, please?”

“I don’t have anything more to say.” Eddie’s palms itch as he restlessly kicks his toe into the carpet.  _ Thump, thump, thump.  _ In time with his throbbing head. This endlessly circling argument is a waste of time.

“This isn’t like you.”

“You don’t know everything about me.” Eddie shakes from the pain. It feels like a drill punching a ragged hole into his skull. He needs to leave right fucking now before his forehead splits open and his brains spill all over the carpet.

Richie frowns. “Clearly.”

Eddie throws his fist against the wall. Loud. Disgustingly violent. “You’re not my fucking responsibility anymore,” he hisses. His right ear pops, and the words fall from his mouth like stones. “You goddamn leech.”

Silence rings out, thicker than a storm laden cloud. He regrets it the moment he says it, but there’s no taking it back. The damage is done. He can see it painted clear as day on Richie’s face.

Richie inhales sharply. “Fuck you, Kaspbrak. Seriously, fuck you,” he says crisply. So matter of fact, it stings like a whip.

Eddie should yank out his traitorous tongue.

He hunches his shoulders and shoves the door open. He’s nearly blinded by the light pouring through the stained glass window at the end of the hall. His throbbing brain cries out in agony, so he steadies himself against the jamb.

A woman made of glass peers placidly from the middle panel. Her empty eyes fix on him, like she’s judging every bad decision he’s made in his life. Thankfully, she’s the only witness to his fuck up. The other Losers must have left long ago.

He’s no longer Richie’s bodyguard, but Eddie has a lot of fucks to give about him. Once he returns with his token, he’ll fix this, but right now he needs to focus on regaining his memories. It’s the only way to keep them safe.

“That’s right, manly man thinks he’s so smart!” Richie calls out as Eddie shuffles towards the stairs. “Run away with your tail between your legs! Don’t let the door hit you where the good lord split you!”

_ If _ he can fix it.

Eddie ducks his head and flees down the stairs.

Eddie follows the dogwoods. He descends along a once-familiar path, becoming more and more tangled with weeds and invasive growth as he goes.

"Great," he mutters under his breath, following the ever present red branches and snow-white blossoms. There's no one around for miles, because who the hell jogs at lunch on a weekday? "If I get murdered by that bitch ass clown... well, at least it’ll make Richie happy. Fuck! Stupid, fucking—"

Eddie trips on a tree root hidden by the duff, and barely manages to catch himself on a picket fence. He clenches his teeth in resolve. From now on he isn't going to think about Richie, lest he ends up with a broken neck.

Eddie takes a deep breath. Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus on why he came here.

The fence is covered in generations of vining plants, and seamlessly blends in with the forest. The weathered posts are in such a state of disrepair, they’re liable to tip over if he puts any more weight on it. His fingers find a latch hidden under all the vegetation. Hindered by years of built-up of rust, it gives beneath his touch.

“What the hell,” he whispers, exploring what was once a suburban backyard. The lawn is more of a field of knee-high weeds than grass. A steel drum lies on its side in a pile of dandelions, a grill peeking from one of the many rusted holes in the side. Eddie can practically smell hickory smoke, and hear the sizzle of meat as it hits hot iron.

A feral cat sits on a nearby post, its gaze following him as it licks its paw, then grooms behind its ears.

An abandoned house lies further onto the property. The siding is grey and stained, but once upon a time it was a soft cream. On either side of a filthy window grows more dogwoods, making the house look like it is being consumed by flames. It must have been a single bush that spread after years without pruning. The branches scratch the siding, clumping far outside the brick-lined bed.

Paint peels off the back door in curling strips. As he turns the handle, he finds it locked up tight.

“Damn,” Eddie hisses. He’s skinny enough to climb through one of the windows, but he’s not looking forward to the glass. He glances at the bed for a heavy rock. 

His eyes catch instead on a cracked flower pot balanced on a brick. Something makes him pick it up. Maybe it’s the colour of the pot; painted blue with fluffy clouds. Or maybe it’s because his eyes automatically found it, like he knew it was there.

A tarnished key sits underneath. Along with a massive wolf spider. It lifts its front legs threateningly; a dragon guarding its treasure.

“Fuck you,” Eddie tells it. He snatches the key before it can strike, setting the flowerpot back in place. He has no idea what lies inside the house, and trepidation has him biting his lip.

The key turns with a bit of coaxing, but the door sticks and refuses to budge. Frowning, Eddie kicks it to loosen it from the frame. It’s only when he pushes it with his shoulder that something gives. The hinges screech, and the door rips from the frame. Eddie jumps out of the way and it lands on the linoleum floor with a thump.

He hears a scuffle and turns to see the tail end of the cat disappearing into the bushes.

“Sorry about that,” Eddie apologizes to nothing. He shakes his head, venturing inside. “It’s just a house, Eddie, what’s the worst that could happen?”

Eddie squints into the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust. It isn’t as dark as he thought it would be. No one bothered to board up the windows, but dirty as they are, they still let in some light.

The whole place is a mess frozen in time. Collapsed moving boxes lay on a table on the kitchen counter, and plates lay broken in the sink. Yellowed bills are still pinned to the fridge, ink faded and unreadable. He suspects that if he opened one of the cabinets, it would be full to the brim with canned goods.

He wanders down a hallway, holding his arm over his mouth when dust is stirred up by his footsteps. In the living room—musty couch still sitting in the corner—a few frames decorate the mantle above a soot-stained fireplace. He picks one up, using his sleeve to wipe the grime from the glass.

“Damn,” he whispers. It’s empty, and so is the next one. It seems the last occupant had the wherewithal to remove the photos from the frames, if not the furniture.

While exploring the single-story house, he opens what he thinks is a closet door, only to reveal a set of flimsy wooden stairs descending into a pitch black void. He flicks the light switch, but unsurprisingly, the electricity has been cut. Eddie shuts the door. Frida didn’t raise an idiot.

Continuing on, he finds the house empty of belongings, the sheets stripped from the beds. He spends some time in a small bedroom. The ghosts of posters haunt the walls; carbon shadows left after an atomic blast. He runs his fingers along the daybed’s railing, expecting to remember something, but there’s nothing.

At the very end of the hallway sits an end table with two shelves. On the bottom shelf, he finds another picture frame hidden behind a stack of Kelley Blue Books. When he wipes away the grime from the glass, an eerily familiar face smiles back at him. The man in the photo looks almost exactly like Eddie did in his twenties; except his nose is flatter and his face is thinner. He wears a suit jacket and tie, and holds hands with a plump woman in a white dress.

“Oh,” Eddie breathes. Setting down the picture frame, he tilts his head back. Right above him is the attic door, whitewashed to match the plaster.

He returns with a stool from the kitchen. Pushing open the heavy door is the easy part. Getting into the attic is much more difficult. He grabs onto the rafters, hauling himself up, futilely kicking against the wall for leverage.

“This is what I get for skimping on leg day,” he grunts and hisses, cursing the lack of ladders.

Once he finally manages to haul himself inside, he finds a small space with barely any room to move. The attic is full of boxes, but what really catches his eye lies in a shaft of sunlight peeking from a vent. At first it looks like an instrument case, but as he crawls closer, he notices a name carved into the leather.

_ Frank Kaspbrak. _

“Holy shit,” Eddie breathes, then immediately coughs. He must have inhaled bat droppings or asbestos because a lump catches in his throat and his eyes burn.

He carefully drops the case to the stool, then swings down from the attic, landing in a crouch. Tucking the photo from the frame into his back pocket, he grabs the case by the handle, heading back the way he came.

The sun has barely moved in the sky. He wasn’t in there for long, and he doesn’t feel any different. Mike said he should remember, but he doesn’t. Eddie sets the case in the tall grass. The seed heads brush his knees, waving in the slight breeze. Thankfully, he wore pants today. Who knows how many deer ticks are waiting for the ideal ankle to come along.

Opening the case reveals a compound bow, five silver arrows snapped into the quiver. He touches the wooden grip and limbs, then the wheels and the gleaming steel cables. Nothing. No memories resurface.

“Damnit,” Eddie whispers, disappointed.

Eddie has tried archery before, but never thought about it beyond it being one of the few things he knows about his dad. As he lifts this bow, checking for wear and damage, he finds himself going through unfamiliar motions to set it up.

The cat comes back while he works, sitting on the same post as before. It observes as he stands and places one of the arrows onto the rest, aiming for a stump at the end of the yard. He draws back and takes a deep breath. Releasing the arrow with a loud thwack, the string skins his finger and clips the side of his face, forcing his entire body to swing left.

The arrow thuds into the fence, barely a foot away from the cat.

“Sonofabitch!” Eddie winces, pressing his hand against his stinging cheek.

The cat, not one to be startled twice, swishes its tail back and forth.

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” he asks, hot blood seeping between his fingers.

The cat purrs.

He stumbles back through the weedy path to the Town House parking lot. There’s a first-aid kit in the car. There is also one behind the front desk, but he doesn’t know if anyone is back yet, and he’s not in the mood to humiliate himself.

Rummaging around in the trunk, he finds the kit beside the donut wheel. He shuts the trunk, and double-takes when he comes face to face with a man, a Cheshire grin plastered across his face and a knife in his hand.

“It’s your time, Eddie.”

“Wha—” Eddie starts.

The knife descends in a wide arc, sliding into his cheek like butter. The taste of hot pennies explodes on his tongue. Instinctively, Eddie brings up the plastic kit to whack the man across the face. It bursts open, raining bandages and disinfectant towelettes all over the blacktop.

The man hits the ground shoulder first with a hard crack. He rolls over, blood streaming from his nose, the dislocated bone at his shoulder bulging from his skin. He shakes his head, and that’s when Eddie notices the mullet.

“What the fuck,” Eddie lisps around the goddamn  _ knife  _ in his mouth. Fuck. The burr of a poorly sharpened blade rasps against his tongue. The world spins. Bright starbursts pop in his vision, followed by a hit of dizzying euphoria. The mullet seems to grow the longer he stares at it.

Business in the front, party in the back.

“It’s time to float, Eddie,” mullet man chides, diving for Eddie’s middle in an attempt to tackle him.

Eddie laughs and hops to the side, shoving mullet man to keep his momentum going. He flies smack into the rental’s tail light, cracking the plastic. The car alarm blares, but mullet man shakes off the hit like it’s nothing.

Eddie’s ears throb. Why are car alarms so goddamn loud?

“I don’t fucking know,” mullet man says, face pressed against the bumper. Eddie didn’t realize he was speaking aloud.

“It’s a rhetorical question, asswipe,” Eddie grouses just as the first wave of pain strikes, heavy and sharp like a kick to the teeth. Bye bye adrenaline, hello inflammation.

“He says it’s your time, Eddie,” mullet man sing-songs, his eyes damn well twinkling. He drags his hands over the blacktop in a way that must sting.

Blood trickles out the side of Eddie’s mouth. “Fucking meth heads,” he hisses, putting the car between them. Eddie kicks a pair of gauze scissors into the bushes. Hell will freeze over before Eddie dies at the hand of a meth head with a mullet.

Eddie tries to take a calming breath, but it stings like a bitch and his heart hammers anyway. His face is just one big mass of hurt.

Mullet man rises like a puppet on strings. Eddie’s reminded of that time Bev made him watch  _ The Exorcist  _ and the cursed little girl spider walked down the stairs. It’s as though there’s a string connecting the centre of mullet man’s chest to some crazed puppet master in the clouds. As he gets up, his back folds in a way that should be impossible.

Eddie gags. "Oh fuck, man, that's disgusting."

Mullet man rounds the car, but he shouldn't be able to move in his state. He holds his head at a very wrong angle. Meth can make a person do a lot of crazy shit, but it can’t power someone through a broken neck.

“Give me back my fucking knife!” mullet man shrieks, lunging for Eddie.

A hot flash of horror rushes through him.

Mullet man’s chest explodes.

Eddie dives behind the car for cover, pressing his uninjured cheek to the gravelly blacktop, keeping as low to the ground as possible. His heart beats a mile a minute and his eyes dart all over the place, terrified.

A thump sounds and he watches as mullet man falls prone on the ground, a puddle of blood pouring from a hole between his shoulders.

Eddie holds his breath until a familiar pair of Chelsea boots step into view. “Fuck me,” he says in relief, rolling onto his back, blinking up at the cloudy sky.

Bev’s distressed face appears above him. “Shit, Eds,” she whispers, sliding her handgun back into its holster before crouching in front of him. Her hands hover over his cheek, unsure.

“Is it bad?” he croaks.

As it turns out, it’s pretty bad. They leave the knife in, because that’s what their training says to do, even though it feels counterintuitive. Eddie can’t clench his teeth because the knife is in between them, and there’s no room for his tongue. He supposes he should just be glad he hasn’t lost any teeth. Yet.

Bev drags him inside and sits him in the squishiest armchair in the lounge. The proprietors are still no-shows, because no one pops out of the woodwork to complain about him getting blood on the upholstery.

Ben, the only other Loser around, gapes at Eddie before running off to make a hot water bottle at Bev’s instruction. He leaves again for a blanket the moment Eddie starts to shiver.

Eddie’s fingers are cold and sweaty, which he knows is one of the first signs of shock.

Bev lays a complete first-aid kit on the centre table. Knocking out a couple of painkillers, she hands them to him along with a glass of water which conveniently has a neon pink bendy straw in it. This leads to the horrifying discovery that without a closed seal in his mouth, his ability to suction up water like a vacuum cleaner has been shot to shit. He settles for holding the knife still while he sips.

“So you shot a guy, huh?” Eddie says, setting down his glass when nausea swims in his stomach. “And saved my life. How does it feel knowing that I owe you my firstborn child?” Fuck, he’s turning into Richie; making jokes in perilous situations.

Bev makes a face as she puts on a pair of latex gloves. They need to secure the knife in place so she can drive him to the hospital without the risk of a pothole giving him a Glasgow smile.

"I can't believe you let Henry Bowers get the better of you."

"Let him? He broke his neck and got back up again, there's not much I can do against a zombie," Eddie says, adding. "You knew him?"

Bev opens a roll of sterile gauze, looking up at him in surprise. "You didn’t?"

"I missed the ball on my token." Eddie purses his lips, wincing when the knife pokes his tongue. "Are you doing okay?"

"Am  _ I _ doing okay?" She gestures widely at his sad state of affairs.

"This is the first time you've shot someone," Eddie explains.

"I shot a client's creepy stalker in the ass four years ago," Bev says, cutting the gauze into a long strip.

"Shot someone and killed them, I mean."

Bev shrugs, carefully wrapping the gauze around the handle, then over and around his head, securing it in place. "I remember everything now,” she says. “I went back to my old apartment and found a fresh horror waiting for me. So I fired an entire clip into that fucker’s head and it spit out every bullet."

“Hey, Eddie, I got you a blanket,” Ben pads down the stairs, a woolen throw bundled in his arms. He lays it over Eddie’s lap, and surprisingly, it does make him feel better. Ben goes over to the window, pulling aside the curtains. “So are we calling the cops now, or after—oh shit!”

The three of them end up in the parking lot, staring at a puddle of gore but no body. A trail of bloody footsteps leads all the way to the curb, where they disappear into thin air.

“Maybe he caught a rideshare?” Ben suggests, making a confused, strangled noise in his throat that might be a laugh. Eddie can’t tell if he’s joking.

Eddie is not doing so good either. "I need to find Richie," he says, hands sweating so profusely he can barely get a grip on his phone to pull it out of his pocket.

“Yeah, we need to warn the others,” Bev says. “I’ll call Bill.”

Ben nods. “Mike and Patty were heading to the library, I should get them together.”

He can barely hear anything beyond the blood rushing through his ears and the ringing of the connecting call. Everything else seems to fall into the background—the throbbing pain in his cheek, the fact that his shirt is soaked through with sweat and blood—all he can think is that Richie isn’t picking up the fucking phone.

He tries again when it goes to voicemail. “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” he whispers, hissing when that damn prerecorded message plays. Either Richie is ignoring his calls, or something has happened to him.

A terrifying image of Richie struggling with Bowers comes to mind. Richie’s strong, but Bowers is something else entirely. His knife is currently embedded in Eddie’s cheek, but his bare hands could choke Richie to death if he got on top of him.

Eddie’s breathing comes faster and faster, until he’s gulping for air.

Suddenly he’s sitting on the curb with his arms wrapped around his legs, and Bev’s kneeling in front of him. She whispers to him, but Eddie can’t really hear what she’s saying. Her voice is soft, and she takes his hands in hers, rubbing her thumbs over his knuckles, over and over again. She’s breathing slowly and deeply, and instinctively Eddie copies her. His heart rate slows, his hands stop shaking, and he finally feels like he can take in oxygen.

“Okay?” She asks.

Eddie nods.

“Good. Mike and Patty are holed up at Mike’s apartment in the library, and Bill’s heading there too.”

“Richie?” Eddie rasps.

Bev shakes her head. “We can’t reach him. Ben tried. I tried, but we’re just getting his voicemail.” She purses her lips, then says. “We can worry about Richie later, right now we need to take you to the hospital.”

“No,” Eddie shakily climbs to his feet, dusting off his trousers, despite the fact that they’re caked in blood and dirt. “I have to find him.”

“A knife is sticking out of your face,” Bev says slowly, a second away from popping a fuse. “You realize that, don’t you? Please tell me you haven’t forgotten that a fucking knife was stabbed into your face?”

“Eddie, c’mon, you’re not thinking clearly,” Ben says softly, hands raised like he’s trying to calm a bucking horse, and to be fair, Eddie is not acting rationally. This entire situation is the opposite of rational, so maybe some irrationality is the way to go.

“The others will keep an eye out for Richie,” Bev says.

“From the safety of the library?” Eddie frowns. “No. I need to make sure he’s safe.”

“Eds,” Bev sighs, frustrated. “Richie’s smart, he can take care of himself.”

Eddie scoffs. “That’s why I was hired, right? Because Richie can take care of himself.”

Eddie considers his options. He could go to the hospital, or he could do his job and make sure Richie is safe. Not because he’s Richie’s bodyguard, but because he loves him. And holy shit, Eddie loves him. If anything happens to Richie because of his selfishness, he doesn’t think he could ever forgive himself.

“After I deal with this knife,” Eddie says slowly, voice shaking because he knows what he has to do. “We look for Richie, right?”

Bev sighs in relief. “Yes.” She steps back, heading for the rental where Ben’s already waiting for them. He leans against the backdoor and gives Eddie a smile that’s mostly pity, but with a hint of wide-eyed freaked-the-fuck-out. Eddie can’t blame him. He returns the smile, but it feels more like a grimace. He’s about to make Ben’s day ten times worse.

Eddie starts unraveling the bandages holding the knife in place, and Ben’s expression slides right towards horrified.

“Wait, Eds,” Bev starts, her hand going up. “No!”

This is all before Eddie takes a deep breath, grabs the knife by the handle, and yanks it out as quickly as he can.

Bev shrieks, hands flying to her mouth. Eddie drops the knife to the ground with a clatter.

“What are we waiting for, let's g—” Eddie gags as blood cartoonishly shoots out of his mouth and down his throat at the same time. Oh wow, that’s much more blood than he expected. Ben is quick to fetch the first-aid kit. He grabs a wad of gauze, holding it tight to the wound, slapping his hand over Eddie’s other cheek. It feels like Ben’s squeezing his head with all of his big muscle groups. But he’s doing a great job at keeping all his blood where it needs to be.

Eddie’s gaze darts over to Bev. She’s rooted in the same spot, cycling between emotions like a slot machine. There’s horror, disgust, and finally righteous anger. She snatches a roll of bandages from the kit, advancing on him with the promise of death.

“Fuck you!” Bev punches him in the shoulder. Thankfully, his entire body is so numb, he can barely feel the jab.

“Can we go—” Eddie starts to ask, but Bev shoves the roll into his mouth before he can finish.

“You are  _ such  _ a fucking prick, Kaspbrak,” Bev hisses, just as her phone rings. Still glaring, she pulls it from her pocket. Checking the caller ID, her eyes widen and she picks the call. “Mike?” She nods, running her hand through her hair as Mike talks, saying fuck knows what. Ben and he wait in gory anticipation. “Okay, alright. We’ll be right there.” She hangs up the phone. “Richie’s safe. He killed Bowers.”

“Permanently?” Ben asks, nervously glancing at the dried puddle of blood on the blacktop.

Bev nods. “Seems to be, but they’ve stuffed him in Mike’s steamer trunk, just in case.”

“Fuck,” Eddie says around a mouthful of soaked gauze. The flow is starting to slow down. Itchiness means clotting, and boy is he itchy.

Bev purses her lips, pointing an accusing finger at him. “If that gets infected and you die, I’m going to carve ‘idiot’ on your gravestone right after ‘son’ and ‘brother’.”

“I love you, too,” Eddie sighs. Relief makes him want to float to the sky, like a hundred pound weight has been lifted from his shoulders. “Let’s go.”

The first thing Eddie sees after Mike lets them into the closed library in a large steamer trunk sitting in the middle of the floor. The library smells overwhelmingly of bleach, and there’s a suspicious wet spot on the wooden floor a few feet away. Like it was scrubbed so hard, the varnish came off.

The second thing Eddie sees is the back of Richie’s head as he sits on a couch with his head in his hands. Patty’s in the armchair opposite him reading from a thick book in her lap, but she occasionally looks up from its pages to check on Richie. Bill keeps sentry at the window, occasionally peeking through the curtains. He spares a glance for Eddie, and his face pales. Eddie didn’t think he was  _ that  _ hideous.

Mike drags a hand over his face and shakes his head. He looks worn beyond his years, more so than the rest of them, but then he’s had this burden to bear for twenty-seven years. “I knew Bev said you were hurt, but I didn’t think it was this bad. Are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?”

“Y—,” Bev starts, but Eddie’s quick to cut her off. “I’m fine.”

He’s watching Richie out of the corner of his eye, so he notices when he lifts his head in interest. Eddie looks away before he turns and catches him staring.

Eddie touches his cheek. “It’s not that bad.” He spat out the blood soaked gauze in the parking lot bin. It’s no longer actively bleeding, but there’s still a hole in his face that needs proper dressing.

“What are we going to do with the elephant in the room?” Ben asks, eyeing the trunk.

Eddie shrugs, kicking it with the tip of his toe, wishing he was actually kicking Bowers. “Bury him in the barrens?”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.” Ben wrings his hands. “Maybe we should call the police?”

“We can’t tell the police,” Mike says. “If Richie pleads self-defence they’ll wonder why he felt the need to cave in Bowers’ skull with an axe  _ and  _ shoot him with Bev’s gun. The police in town are useless, but they'll file a report even if it goes uninvestigated.”

“And Richie’s name will be on it,” Eddie adds, nodding his head. Richie announced to the world the name of his hometown only a few days ago. “If a reporter does some digging…”

“My career will be over,” Richie finishes, sauntering over. His skin is sweaty and his hair sticks up in all directions like he’s spent the last few hours running his hands through it. Somehow, he’s calm as a clam. Eddie wonders if he was hit over the head and is now suffering from a concussion. “Can I talk to you?” Richie asks, meeting his eye briefly, before his gaze falls to Eddie’s cheek.

“Great,” Bev says, clapping her hands once. “You can redress his wound.” 

They end up in the women’s room because Eddie took one look in the men’s room and walked right out. Three empty stalls face opposite the sinks, and a floor to ceiling window floods the room with sunlight filtered through tall maples, making up for the fact that three out of four tube lights in the fixture are dead.

“You’re gonna have to tell me what to do,” Richie says, washing his hands, pumping the soap dispenser at least ten times. “I can barely stick a bandage on my own knee, so you might end up with a terrible villain scar.”

“Okay.” Eddie’s shoes slip on the tiles as he hops up onto one of the sinks, watching Richie grab paper towels from the dispenser to dry his hands.

Richie snaps on a pair of gloves with clinical care, holding up his hands like he’s a surgeon in a sterile operating room and not a disgusting public washroom. Eddie hides his smile by turning his face away.

“If I throw up, I can’t be held accountable when my puke gets all over your lap.”

“Okay,” Eddie repeats, happy to be in Richie’s presence.

“Just covering my bases,” Richie says, staring down at the open first-aid kit, looking so much like a lost beat dog, Eddie’s heart clenches.

“Okay.” Eddie nods, trying to make this as easy for Richie as possible. “Grab the betadine and a few sterile swabs. We’ll start there.”

Richie’s quiet as he works. The only noise he makes is the occasional ‘hmm’. Eddie is much more talkative with his step-by-step instructions, and he’s the one getting butterfly stitches applied to his face by a non-medical professional. He’s going to have a terrible scar. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t end up with a permanent hole in his cheek.

Maybe Richie’s quiet because he’s concentrating, but Eddie’s can practically taste his anger in the air. His touches are gentle right now, but it’s easy to imagine him pushing Eddie away when he’s done. He never should have left. He never should have said those things. Richie’s hands would be clean of blood if Eddie had stuck with him.

Eddie opens and closes his jaw, testing his range of motion. The moment he tries to open his mouth more than an inch, everything tightens uncomfortably. He won’t be eating sandwiches anytime soon.

Richie lays a final square of gauze over the whole mess, secured in place by a few pieces of tape. “Are we done here?” he asks, probably wondering if Eddie has any more instructions. Eddie reads a different meaning into his words.

Eddie folds his hands together over his lap to disguise the fact that he’s shaking. He’s terrified, he realizes, of losing Richie. The thought is enough for his pride to take the backseat.

“I’m sorry,” he says because that’s all he can say. He offers no excuses, no nothing. He just apologizes.

"You're sorry?" Richie repeats, shaking his head as he pulls off the gloves, balls them up, then throws them at the bin. He misses by a yard. Muttering under his breath, Richie goes to pick them up, disposing of them properly.

“I am,” Eddie nods. “I said such cruel things to you, so, I’m sorry.”

“You being sorry doesn’t make this better.” Richie clenches and unclenches his fists at his sides. His eyes well up with tears, and Eddie gets the sense that anger isn’t the only emotion he’s feeling.

Eddie nods. “You have every right to be mad.”

Richie scowls. “Don’t you patronize me.”

“I’m not,” Eddie retorts, scratching his ear. Why is he so itchy all of a sudden? It’s like a feather’s tickling his eardrum. His scratching doesn’t seem to be doing any good. It’s getting worse. “Can’t you just accept my fucking apology?” he asks, irritated.

“Sure.” Richie shrugs, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’ll accept it, once you actually apologize.”

Eddie winces at the stabbing sensation that starts up in his head out of nowhere. Fucking hell, not another migraine.

“I’m sorry, like I said the previous two times,” Eddie says, dropping his head back against the filthy mirror. “There. Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Richie says dryly. “So you didn’t mean to call me a leech?” Richie purses his lips, staring up at the ceiling like he can’t bear to look at Eddie. “Y’know, a blood-sucking parasite?” He scoffs. “No, I think you did. I think that’s what you think of me.”

Eddie says nothing.

“What was this thing between us? A fling? Was I easy for you? You figured, ‘hey, money isn’t enough, I might as well get something else out of this shitty comedian.’ Was that it? Am I hitting the nail on the head yet?”

Eddie squeezes his eyes shut against the burning light, discreetly pressing his hand to his throbbing ear. “There’s no need to be so sensitive.”

“Sensitive?” Richie laughs humourlessly. “I don’t know what the hell I ever saw in you, you complete asshole. I thought I had issues with toxic masculinity, you— you know what, I’m done.” Richie shakes his head, striding right past Eddie. He stops in front of the door. “I saw some fucking shit today, Kaspbrak. The kind of shit that would make anyone piss their pants, but I remember now. I didn’t in the morning, but I do now. I remember what you were to me, but you don’t, do you?”

“That doesn’t mean you were right.”

Richie snorts. “Yeah, of course you don’t. The Eddie I knew never would have said something like that to me. When my Eddie apologized, he meant it.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Eddie says through clenched teeth. “I’m Eddie.”

“No.” Richie shakes his head, opening the door. “You’re nothing like him.”

He closes it behind him, and instead of horror and regret, all Eddie feels is sweet, beautiful relief.

He slides down from the sink, landing unsteadily on his feet. Turning around, he grabs onto the cold porcelain. “This is for the best,” he tells himself. “He isn’t worth it.” Eddie turns on the tap. Hot water pours over his hands, steaming as it turns his skin red. He closes his eyes and splashes the water on his face.

“He was never good enough for me.”

Eddie rubs his hands over his face, fingertips scratching his cheeks.

“He thinks he knows everything about me, but he doesn’t know shit.” Eddie blinks water out of his eyelashes, looking up at his reflection. He smiles back at himself, golden sunlight reflecting yellow in his irises. He grabs a paper towel from the dispenser, drying off his hands. “How dare he talk to me like that?”

His reflection adjusts the tie at his throat, but Eddie isn’t wearing a tie.

“Unfunny, disgusting man,” his reflection says, pushing hair back from his face, styled wet with pomade. His skin is unmarred, pale, bright and perfect. The hole in his cheek doesn’t exist. The zit on his chin is gone. “Thinks he’s so smart.”

His reflection rubs a thumb over his bottom lip, candy apple red and parted to reveal sharp incisors. “He’s a filthy dog. No. He’s lower than a dog.” His reflection giggles, yellow eyes widening. “We should put him in his place, shouldn’t we, Eddie?”

He dusts a speck of lint from his suit lapel. “We should go to the car, fetch our daddy’s bow. Let him try to run.” Saliva trails from the corner of his reflection’s mouth, dripping into the sink. “Shoot him in the heart like the mutt he is, then all his little friends too. They always liked him better than y—”

The bathroom door opens, and Ben steps inside, shaking his head as he frowns down at his phone. “Hey, Eddie. So Bill ran off. Something about a skateboard and a kid? I don’t know. He’s not answering any of our calls.”

Eddie’s frozen in front of the mirror, unable to move, fingers fixed on his lapel. He strains to look at Ben out of the corner of his eye. He can’t move his neck, not an inch. It’s like he’s made of stone.

“Bev wanted me to let you know.” Ben sighs, tucking his phone into his jacket pocket. “But anyways, what happened between you and Richie? He came running out of here—” Ben cuts off abruptly, making a choked-off noise in his throat.

_ He sounds like a dying goat, _ Eddie thinks ungraciously.

“Jesus fucking christ!” Ben shrieks shrilly. “Eddie!”

_ “What?” _ Eddie asks, but it’s not his voice that comes out of his mouth. It’s infinitely more raspy and piercing.

“Oh shit!” Ben exclaims, panicked, voice rising in volume and pitch. “Guys!  _ Guys!” _

Eddie clears his throat of the frog trapped in it. “What’s wrong?” Eddie asks, this time in his own voice.

Ben approaches cautiously, arms up, hands clenched into fists like he’s getting ready to deck Eddie.

Eddie frowns deeply. His reflection was right. His friends are all on Richie’s side. Eddie glances towards the window, considering. Ben’s blocking the door. The window is only a one story drop. Of course it’s sealed, so he will have to shatter the glass. Punching and kicking it would work. He’d have to climb through a broken window after, but what’s a few cuts compared to a broken heart? And fuck, Richie really did break his heart. Once he’s out, he could easily make it to the car in time. He’d have to shoot Bev before she has the chance to use her gun. An arrow to the throat would do the job nicely. Damn, and here he was hoping to pop a hole in Richie first.

“Guys! We have a really big problem!” Ben screams as loud as he can. “Eddie, look in the mirror!”

“I am,” Eddie says. And he is; golden-eyed Eddie waggles his fingers back at him, pointing to the window with an expectant grin.

“Look better!” Ben bellows.

Eddie frowns. Squeezing his eyes shut, he finds he can finally move his neck. He rotates his head to one side, then the other, cracking the bone satisfactorily.

When he opens them again, he finds his own brown eyes looking back at him. He’s no longer wearing a suit, but the hoodie he put on that morning. A bandage is firmly affixed to his cheek, he’s covered in dirt. And there’s something sticking out of his ear.

“Jesus fucking christ!” Eddie screeches, and the  _ something  _ in his ear moves.

“That’s what I said!” Ben exclaims.

It’s jointed, oh fuck. There are hairs all along the pale limb. It’s nearly the length of his forearm and impossibly thick considering the fucking thing is in his ear. Morbidly, he’s reminded of the crab legs at the Jade of the Orient. If they had spoiled weeks ago.

The spider leg—because what else could it possibly be—seems to be getting shorter. For one moment of sweet, blessed relief, Eddie thinks it’s going away, but then he realizes that the only place it could be going is further inside him.

“Ben! Eddie cries out. “Help! Get it out of me, please, oh god, oh fuck, Ben, please!”

Ben lunges for him, grabbing hold of the spider leg. He tries tugging on it, but it doesn’t budge an inch. It’s no longer retreating, Ben has enough strength to keep it in place, but that’s it. Eddie watches in the mirror as sweat beads on Ben’s forehead, feet skidding along the floor as he pulls and pulls, muscles straining, to no avail.

Eddie survived getting stabbed in the face, but now he's going to die because a spider wedged itself in his eardrum and has been slurping on his brain like it’s Jamba Juice. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Eddie’s gonna die.

“Richie!” Eddie screams at the top of his lungs.


	16. Derry, 2016

The door crashes open, slamming into the wall. Bev charges in, handgun out and pointed at the floor. She takes one good look at the situation and shrieks, the gun dropping with a clatter. She rushes over and grabs Eddie by the waist, pulling him in the opposite direction from Ben.

“Oh god,” Mike says somewhere over Ben’s shoulder. Eddie catches a glimpse of Patty’s blonde bob for a single second before she’s running back into the hall. He can’t see Richie anywhere.

Bev’s fingers dig bruises into his side, distracting him, but that’s nothing compared to Ben planting his heel on Eddie’s thigh, trying to get leverage.

“Do you mind!?” Eddie yells, outraged.

Ben grimaces, apologetic, his entire face red with strain. He doesn’t remove his foot, trying to use gravity to his advantage. The spider leg slides out just a little more, and it feels exactly like a reverse wet willy.

Eddie’s eyes dart about wildly, focusing on the mirror where he has a front row seat to his friends playing tug of war with his head. Eddie gags, stomach churning. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“What if we cut it?” Richie says, and oh, he’s here. His arms are wrapped tight around Ben’s middle, but that’s all Eddie can see of him, except for a dark mop of hair. “Wait no. That’s a bad idea. What the fuck is that thing attached to? Mike, man, take over. I’m gonna get a closer look.”

Eddie blinks, and suddenly Richie’s there. He combs his fingers through Eddie’s hair, cradling his head like it’s something precious. Richie’s complexion is sweaty and practically green, but his touch is reassuringly gentle. When Eddie whimpers, he meets his gaze, making a soothing noise in his throat.

“I can’t keep this up forever,” Ben says through clenched teeth. He adjusts his grip on the thing, trying to gain more ground, but at this point, they're fighting the inevitable.

"I don't know, man, I don't know what to do." Richie shakes, seconds from falling apart. He prods the spider leg, but it flexes and that only seems to make Richie sweatier. "Whatever you do, for fuck's sake don't let go."

"No, do!" Eddie snarls abruptly, inhumanly reedy. "Let go, Ben! Let go so we can rip off Richie's head!"

Richie stumbles away from him, eyes wide and terrified. His back hits the sink, and he collapses on the floor, staring up at Eddie with desperate hopelessness.

A ringing sounds in his head, bouncing off his skull. It’s laughing at him, he realizes. And that just makes Eddie angry.

"Get the fuck out of my head!" Eddie screeches. He wraps his hands around Ben's, yanking on the spider limb with all his might, uncaring that he might hurt himself in the process.

"Hold on!” Patty skids in through the doorway, her Keds burning hot rubber on the tile. “This will help!" She brandishes a cheerfully green aerosol can.

Eddie barely has time to close his eyes before burning mist sprays into his face. Eddie screams in pain as what feels like napalm splashes onto his skin. Wait. No. It isn’t him that’s screaming.

The fucking spider lets out an otherworldly wail. Eddie coughs as a cloud of fumes envelopes him, pesticides burning his airway. He squeezes his eyes against the assault and tries his best not to breathe it in as Patty sprays him, shakes the can, and then sprays him some more.

There’s a deafening roar echoing in his head, splitting him open with its fury. Eddie hunches over, clutching his head in agony. Someone’s yelling. He thinks it’s Richie. Wavering on knees unable to take his weight any longer, he collapses. Pressure builds up in his skull, growing and growing until he thinks he might explode, but then, nothing. That reverse wet willy sensation, and something slimy and icy cold touches the side of his face, slithering as it falls to the ground with a slap.

“Fuck you!” Bev yells, stomping on that something, crunching it beneath her feet like wet snow.

Eddie scrubs his hands over his face, trying to rid himself of that icky sensation. His cheek stings, burning as the pesticide seeps through the bandage. He gets his fingers under it, ripping the tape from his skin, tossing the bandage away. He squeezes his eyes shut as the chemicals drip from his eyebrows, not wanting to risk his vision, when he’s already lost something else.

He can’t hear anything out of his left ear.

Eddie thought he knew what the absence of sound was like. But even when there wasn’t noise, there was still sound; the rush of blood through his veins, the wind through an open window, the natural creaking as a building settles. This is something else entirely. He feels imbalanced, like he might tip over if he tried to stand. He can’t feel his ear. Everything on the left side of his face is numb.

Someone turns on the sink, and Eddie tilts his head, distantly hearing water splashing against something hollow and plastic.

“Hold your breath,” Ben instructs, and then all that water is flung in his face. Eddie gasps for air, sputtering water instead. Eddie lifts his hands to wipe his face, but someone wraps their fingers around his wrists. It's Richie, Eddie would know his touch in his sleep.

"Your hands are covered in bug spray," Richie says quietly, and then he's wiping Eddie's face with a damp paper towel, smelling of the flowery soap in the dispenser. "I think that's everything."

Carefully, Eddie opens his eyes, vision blurry, but still there. The relief that fills him is enough to make him sob.

There's a smear of something green on the tile, and Eddie deliberately does not look at it.

"What's seven times twelve?" Bev asks bluntly, leaning bodily against the hand driers.

"Eighty-four," Eddie answers immediately, slowly climbing to his feet. Richie steadies him with a hand on his elbow. Eddie studies him and is distressed to see wet lines running down his cheeks.

The others don't look so good either. Bev matches Richie for tears. Ben's breathing heavy, red in the face. Patty's clinging to the empty bottle of bug spray like she's afraid she might need it again. Mike resembles a deer in the headlights.

Eddie stumbles over to the sink. He figured, out of all of them, Mike would be the least frazzled, but he somehow seems the worst off. Fuck knows Eddie will definitely come out of this with a mortal fear of spiders. He's still running off leftover adrenaline pumping through his veins, but when it wears off, he thinks he might start screaming.

"What’s my birthday?" Bev asks, turning the tap back on for him, practically emptying the soap dispenser into his hands.

"February 13," Eddie answers, paying particular attention to scrubbing under his nails. "1976," he adds when she opens her mouth. “It didn’t eat my brain, guys.” When he looks up in the mirror, he finds five equally worried faces staring back at him.

“You’re way too calm considering the circumstances,” Bev says, the harshness of her tone balanced out by her general disquiet.

Eddie half-swallows. He can’t tell them about his hearing. Bev will freak out and insist he goes to the hospital. And then, who knows what the doctors will say? Maybe that thing did eat his brain, and he just doesn’t know it yet. Or maybe it’s nothing, and his hearing will return eventually. Better for him if he doesn’t know.

“He’s in shock,” Patty says, finally tossing away the can. “We all are.”

“Your cheek,” Richie breathes, reaching out like he wants to touch Eddie. He stops himself before he makes contact, fingers flexing like he doesn’t know if he’s allowed.

Shame rises in him. Eddie’s wracked with guilt, loneliness, pain, and it all piles on top like he’s sinking into a hole impossible to climb out of. His face throbs with heat and blood, but at least that means the numbness is fading.

His eyes itch, and for one horrible moment he thinks that thing is still in his head, but the itching becomes a prickle, and he realizes that he’s crying.

“It wasn’t me,” he croaks, begging for Richie to understand.

Richie breaks. He draws close, until Eddie can feel his warmth and the sheer presence of him that has brought Eddie nothing but happiness since the moment they met. Eddie wishes he could remember more than anything, because he wants to know how Richie made him feel when he was a kid. He wonders if it’s how he makes him feel right now.

“It wasn’t me,” Eddie chokes out, squeezing his eyes shut. “It wasn’t me, I fucking love you, Richie, baby, please. I love you. I love taking care of you. I didn’t mean it.”

“I know it wasn’t you,” Richie draws him into an embrace. Eddie scrambles to find purchase on him, clinging first to his shoulders, then around his back. Wanting to be as close to him as possible. “I know.”

Eddie half collapses onto Richie, letting him take his weight. He sobs bitterly against Richie’s fast-beating heart.

Eddie sits on the couch and he stews. It’s the only way to describe his state of mind, while taking into account his facade. Stewing, because he’s a raging ball of fury on the inside, but made of peace and puppies and other gentle things on the outside.

With Richie fast asleep in his lap, mouth open against his knee as he snores, Eddie rests his hand against his ribs. His arm moves up and down with every breath Richie takes. What better proof of life?

The others scraped up the fresh horror from the bathroom, pouring it into the chest with Bowers, who is—surprise, surprise—still dead. They’re giving Eddie space.

After Bev patched him up—with a waterproof dressing this time—she left him and Richie alone. Eddie’s letting him sleep. He deserves it after what he’s been through. Eddie, though, Eddie’s too fucking angry to sleep. He wants to find that clown, and he wants to rip its head from its shoulders.

“Hey.”

Eddie looks up from Richie’s serene face. Patty cautiously steps into his red-tinged field of view, evidently picking up on his shitty mood. If Richie wasn’t in his arms, he thinks he might be much more furious.

“Sorry for spraying you with Baygon.”

Eddie moves his hand up to Richie’s face, stroking a thumb down the line of his jaw. “Thanks for spraying me with Baygon, it’s what I needed.”

Eddie’s ear is still fucked, but it’s not life-threatening. Just another thing he can deal with later. Like Bowers’ body. From what he can make of the snippets of conversation drifting over from the stacks, the others have decided they’re going to bury him in the woods.  _ After. _ If they don’t survive whatever  _ after  _ is, they’ll all be dead, and murder charges are irrelevant in the afterlife.

“I wanted to show you something.” She has a book tucked under her arm. Sitting on the short table in front of the couch, she lays it on her knees.

_ Birds of New England,  _ the clothbound cover declares in cursive text above a woodcut of a bird with a mohawk-like tuft.

“Mike helped me find it,” she explains. “It was out of circulation, so we had to go down into the archives. I must have inhaled a spiderweb—” Eddie flinches. “Shit.”

Eddie shakes his head, smiling weakly. “I can’t afford to let it become a phobia, there are too many creepy crawlies in New York, so feel free to throw in all the spider jokes you can.”

Patty smiles back. “I’ll cut you some slack. For now.”

“For now,” Eddie agrees, lifting his pinky. Patty curls hers around it, shaking it like a promise.

He reaches for the book, somehow knowing to flip to the very back. He pulls the checkout card from the brittle paper slot glued to the endpaper. Stan’s name is written on each and every line. He was the last person to check out the book in ‘89, the first person in ‘85, and the only person in-between.

“It’s okay that you don’t remember,” Patty says. “I don’t either because they’re not my memories.”

He returns the card to its slot. “How did you know?”

“A copy of this book has a permanent place on Stan’s bookshelf,” she says. “All his other wildlife books are about Georgia, but not this one. He bought it brand new at an auction, but I’ve never seen him touch it.” She turns over the book in her lap. The cloth has been patched, and there’s a huge water stain on the back. “Even though he didn’t remember, something inside of him knew; this book is important.”

“You found his token,” Eddie says.

“This book is a piece of my husband. I want him to have a past, just as much as I need him to have a future.” She closes the book, holding it tight to her chest. “I guess what I’m saying, Eddie, is that you will find your token, and you will get your memories back.”

Eddie purses his lips. “How can you be so sure?”

Patty reaches out and takes his hand in hers, squeezing it tight. “Because we’re going to kill that thing.”

Eddie inhales sharply through his nose, staring into her eyes, and finding nothing but conviction in their depths. “No ifs and buts,” he adds.

“Exactly.” She nods, patting the back of his hand before letting go. “We’re going to kill it, then we’re going to drive you to the nearest hospital, and I’m going to catch a red eye straight to Atlanta to be with my husband.”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes. He unclenches his jaw, then repeats firmly. “Yeah.”

Her eyes crinkle at the corners. “Now, go get your token. Don’t think about it, don’t worry about it, just go. And it will find you.”

He sneaks out of the library like a teenager steals away to go clubbing on a school night. Not that Eddie was ever that teenager. He was the one who laid wide awake in bed while Bev did the sneaking.

Tiptoeing down the hall, he avoids the squeaky floorboards by hugging the wall. He locks himself out of the library, convincing himself it’s to keep the others safe in case another Bowers comes after them. In reality, it’s to prevent him from going back inside.

Eddie’s angry, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t also terrified.

Patty watches him from the second floor window, lifting a hand in a silent wave. He nods at her, hoping he isn’t off to get himself killed, like Bill. Yikes, best to not think about Bill and why he isn’t answering his phone.

For all his hurrying about, once Eddie climbs into the rental, he just sits a while.

He finds his thoughts drifting to Richie. Eddie left him asleep on the couch, having tucked his sweater beneath his head as a makeshift pillow. Eddie wants to be with him, to hold his hand, kiss him just because he feels like it. He wants to take him places, wine and dine him like they did at the Palm Court when a stray champagne cork was the most dangerous thing that could happen. He wants to sleep with Richie. Not sex. Well, not just sex. He wants to sleep beside him, to say goodnight and wake up beside him in the morning. He wants the world to know about them, not because he wants to claim Richie as his own, but because he wants Richie to know that Eddie’s proud to love him.

Most of all, Eddie wants to remember the kid Richie knew. He wants to be more than his bodyguard. But, he’ll take what he can get. The words he flung like knives Richie’s way may have been crass and insensitive, but some of them were true. This monster has a way of using Eddie’s own insecurities as a weapon.

He watches the orange sun hover over the horizon, hands gripped tight around the steering wheel. It will be dark soon, the sun sinking below the treeline, casting long, haunted shadows on the duff. He's not supposed to go out in the woods after dark. There are malevolent things out there, things that want only to swallow him whole.

A knock sounds on his window, and he nearly jumps out of his seat.

Richie. Bedraggled, hair sticking up in all directions, one hand shoved in his pocket, the other...

“You forgot something,” he says, audible through the glass if Eddie tilts his head just so. He holds up Eddie’s sweater, brow furrowed, like he’s worried Eddie might deny him again.

Eddie reaches over and pats the passenger’s seat. When Richie smiles, his face lights up, and Eddie knows he made the right decision.

Richie slides into the car, moving the seat back to accommodate his long legs. Clicking his seatbelt, he dumps Eddie’s sweater onto his lap. “Where to, Mr. Kaspbrak?” There’s apprehension in his voice, but more than anything else, there’s trust.

“I have no idea.” Eddie shrugs as he tugs on his sweater.

Richie chuckles under his breath. “Fair enough.”

With a hand on the back of the passenger’s seat, Eddie looks over his shoulder as he backs out. After years of driving the Escalade in crowded New York, it’s a habit he picked up. Here, in empty Maine, he could shoot out of the spot, full throttle, and it would be a hundred feet before he hit something else.

He returns his hand to the gear shift, and is surprised when Richie folds their fingers together.

“I love you too.” Richie strokes the callused skin over his knuckles, this intense, yearning look on his face that makes Eddie feel like he’s riding lightning.

Eddie blushes, feeling stupid for the heat rushing to his cheeks. Eventually, Richie lets him have his hand back to start the car, but not before his smile, and the way he looks at Eddie like he means something, reduces him to a melting puddle of sappy goo.

He turns onto Route Two, driving past empty lots that were once thriving farmland. Richie leans back in his seat, scrunching up his face, trying to hide a yawn. Discreetly, Eddie observes him from the corner of his eye, wondering how he ever got so lucky.

FM radio is a bust. He turns the dial, and keeps on turning, but mostly static rings through. With nothing better to do, he returns to the clearest station, which happens to be blues country. Townes Van Zandt’s twangy verses suit the open road like nothing else. Three of his songs play in a row. It’s easy to picture some bootleg broadcaster in a moss-covered shack, decked out in an Aran sweater, pipe in mouth, waiting around to die. 

He drives over a rickety wooden bridge that somehow gets them across in one piece. Every so often, he sees a mailbox at the end of a dirt road. When the radio cuts out after a few more miles, he finds his fingers itching for a tape to slide into a nonexistent player.

The fields turn into brush, and the brush turns into trees. Still, Eddie drives. He switches off the GPS, and lets the road take them where he needs to be. Eventually, he comes across an intersection, and automatically turns the wheel to the right. He’s heading north now, along a single lane country road with gravel shoulders. The sun dips beneath the trees to his left, blinking between the gaps, until the forest becomes too thick and unruly for any light to shine through.

He has to switch on the headlights when he sporadically notices deer hanging by the shoulders. They stare passively as the car drives on by. He’s heard stories of motorists speeding down empty roads like the one they’re on, then, bam! Their windshield is slicked with blood and they’re swerving into a tree.

Eddie glances over at Richie. He’s chewing his lip, arms folded over his chest. Richie’s scared, but Eddie isn’t. Not anymore. He’s angry, and he’s frustrated, but most of all, he’s invigorated. He’s so damn close to regaining everything he’s lost.

A gap in the trees appears, and Eddie takes the turn. The suspension groans and rattles and they bump up and down in their seats, headlights flashing wildly over distant trees. Soon, he’s no longer driving over gravel, but struggling through viscous mud. Eddie slams his foot on the brakes before they get stuck. He has the feeling there’s no cell service out here, and even fewer tow trucks.

Richie clears his throat, clutching at his seatbelt. “Lovely, even more trees. But hey, if these trees mean something to you, nice,” Richie says like he thinks that nothing, least of all the clearing they’re in, is nice.

Eddie turns off the engine, and as the lamps brighten to blinding for a second before they fade to black, he catches a glimpse of the flickering surface of a lake through slender trees.

Eddie takes a deep breath.

He gets out, turning on his phone’s flashlight, keeping it trained on the ground. Richie scrambles to do the same, shutting the door by pressing it closed, like he’s trying to make as little noise as possible. Eddie points the light at him, lifting a single brow. Richie shrugs. “If you wanna get eaten by wolves, that’s fine, just don’t drag me into it.”

“There are no wolves in Maine,” Eddie states. “Bears, on the other hand. Plenty of those to be found, so make sure you stash any food in the glove compartment.” He chuckles when Richie hurries to open the car door again.

The mud isn’t as thick as it could be, considering it rained the other day. Still, Eddie’s feet squelch under him, the damp soaking through his runners. He pops the trunk, zeroing in on a bag with a reflective strip down the side. It pays to be prepared, no matter how the others tease him. Inside, he finds three sets of headlamps, water bottles, batteries, among other essentials.

“Hey,” he calls out to Richie, getting his attention. When he looks up, Eddie tosses a headlamp at him.

“Thanks?” Richie tugs on the straps like he doesn’t know what to do with it.

Eddie gestures him over. He sweeps Richie’s hair off his forehead, centering the lamp and snapping the clasps, making sure it isn’t too tight, but not loose enough that it might fall off. “Here.” He takes Richie’s hand, showing him the switch to turn it on.

Two thousand lumens shine between them, and he finds Richie looking at him with eyes soft as butter. His face was dim before, but now his expressions are writ plain as day. His gaze bores into Eddie like a jackhammer, cracking him wide open.

Eddie clears his throat, not knowing what to do with his hands. He drops them at his side. “I don’t know what we’ll find in there.” Turning back to the trunk, he pulls out two packs of batteries from the bag, slipping them into Richie’s jacket pocket. “Don’t let your light go out.”

“How could I when he’s standing in front of me?”

Eddie freezes, slowly looking up at Richie, only to find him colouring beautifully, coughing out a small laugh.

“Fuck,” Eddie whispers to himself, horrified to feel heat creeping across his cheeks. "Richie, that's so…"

"Gay?" Richie says, that same determined smirk at the corner of his mouth that always seems to precede him dropping to his knees without a care about degrading cartilage.

"I was going to say sappy."

“Sorry.” Richie grimaces.

“It’s not a bad thing,” Eddie says in a hurry. “Some warning would be nice, or you’re going to make me pop a gasket.”

Richie ducks his head, gesturing airily. "I’ve still got hangups a mile long and wide. I'm working on it."

Eddie nods, reaching out to thumb Richie's cheek. "Bow ties, huh?"

"They're a bitch, but I'll squeeze one around my neck one of these days, just you wait and see."

"I'll be there," Eddie murmurs, and they're no longer talking about bow ties, if they were even to start with. “I’ll always be there.”

“Maybe even a cravat.”

Eddie snorts out a little laugh, swinging the bag over his shoulder. “Let’s not be hasty.” He reaches up to slam the trunk shut, but hesitates when he notices a familiar case wedged behind a tire iron. The valleys and hills of his dad’s name carved into the leather has him reaching for it, pulling it closer. Eddie flips open the lid.

Richie sucks in a breath. “Do you usually keep a hunting bow in your car?”

“It was my dad’s.” Eddie pulls out the bow, then the quiver, snapping it to the mounting bracket screwed on the grip. Five silver arrows. He hopes he won’t have to use them, considering he’s not a good shot. How does the saying go? An idiot with a gun only shoots himself in the foot? Seems about right.

"Your dad's," Richie says slowly, eyebrows scrunched. "Mr. K was a hunter, wasn't he?" Realization floods his eyes, and he snaps his fingers. "He killed Bambi's mom."

Eddie stares at him blankly. "I know you live in Los Angeles, but if you're one of those crazy PETA people, we're going to have to break up."

"Eddie, you've seen me eat meat," Richie says.

"Yeah, well, a whole lot of people who eat meat still find issue with people who kill their own food." He shuts the trunk, locking the doors and setting the alarm. If a bear sniffs out the granola Richie stashed in the glove compartment, the alarm should scare them off. He's not exactly worried about car thieves in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere.

"Have you used this thing before?" Richie asks skeptically.

Eddie isn't about to tell Richie about the time he nearly shish kebabed a cat, so he keeps silent, setting off down the path

Richie trails after him. "You were thirteen when you left Derry,” Richie says. “And Mr. K was not the type of man to let a kid handle heavy equipment."

The clearing dips, and the ground gets soggier as they go, the reeds are dense, and grow up to their knees. Come summertime, the cattails tower far above their heads.

"Somehow, I keep forgetting that you had a crush on my dad," Eddie says. The lake stretches to the right of them. The breeze coming off the water is brisk enough to seep through his sweater, making him shiver.

Richie slides a little over the mossy ground, steadying himself with a hand on Eddie’s waist. "It was you, dumbass. I only ever had a crush on you.” He grins like an idiot, and Eddie knows he’s about to say something that will earn him a kick in the shins. “Besides, it’s not a crush if I woke up to your dad’s handsome face every morning—Ouch!”

“You deserve that.” Eddie’s toe throbs and he wonders if Richie’s bones are made of steel. “You are such a grade A asshole sometimes, I swear.” He marches off, but it takes him a few moments to realize that Richie isn’t keeping pace. Eddie turns around. “Richie?”

He finds him stopped in the middle of the path, arms hanging limp at his sides.

Eddie rushes up to him. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve been here before,” Richie says distantly, grabbing onto the edge of Eddie’s sweater. “I recognize that.” He points to a pine, only a few yards away, a rusted sign nailed to its peeling bark.

_ Stop the spread of CWD. Bury carcasses deep. _

“We came here to play hockey in the winter,” Eddie finds himself saying. The ringing of steel scraping on ice and the sound of children giggling echoes in his head. “This was dad’s favourite hunting spot.”

Eddie wanders past the sign, picking through the snagging underbrush. The further they go from the lake, the drier the ground becomes.

“Hunting?” Richie asks nervously, sticking close to Eddie’s back.

“The season is long over,” Eddie reassures, squinting through the foliage. He thinks he sees two glowing orbs through a gap in the trees, but whatever animal it is, it’s gone in a blink. Probably a deer.

Hopefully.

“What’s CWD?” Richie asks curiously.

Eddie chews on his answer for a moment. “Chronic wasting disease,” he eventually says. “Think mad cow but for deer. It gets into the brain and the spinal column. They stop being scared of people, lose weight, start stumbling all over the place, drooling, things like that.”

“Zombie deer?” Richie asks. “That’s what you're describing." He glances around himself nervously. "So you’re saying we could literally be surrounded by millions of zombie deer.”

"I don't think there's that many deer in the state, let alone the county," Eddie says dryly, but in the dark of night, Richie words pick at him, chewing away at common sense until he starts picturing zombie deer herding them, boxing them in, far from where anyone could hear them scream.

Richie shudders, pushing aside the branches of a young conifer. Dark shapes drop from the canopy onto his head. Richie shrieks, cursing up a storm, shaking the debris out of his hair. “Get it off, get it off!”

A seed cone rolls to stop by the tip of Eddie’s shoe.

“Shh,” Eddie whispers, desperately avoiding thoughts of spiders when he takes over for Richie, brushing off his neck and shoulders. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

“What the actual fuck,” Richie mutters, running hands through his hair, shaking himself off.

Eddie tucks the bow under his arm, and gathers him close, resting a hand on his chilled cheek. “Regret coming with me yet?”

Richie shakes his head, silently, even as he glances around the surrounding forest with some suspicion. Eddie turns Richie’s head, making him look down at him. The wind rustles through the trees. Eddie pulls Richie into a kiss, tender and slow. Richie lets out a groan, deep in his chest, making Eddie hum with approval.

Eddie pulls back. “I’ll keep you safe. Always.”

To his left, comes the barest hint of a sound.

“What was that?” Richie shakes, eyes darting all over the place like a neurotic horse.

Eddie tilts his head, his last remaining ear working overtime.

“Seriously, Eddie, what the fuck was that?”

Eddie rubs his hand on Richie’s shoulder, down his arm, trying to regain some control of the situation. He encircles his fingers around Richie’s wrist, turning to face the direction of the sound.

There, hiding in the bush, a fox pokes its sly head from the undergrowth. Its ears pin to its skull as it gets a load of him, probably not knowing what to think about this biped intruding into its space. Eventually it reaches the right decision, because its pupils dilate, and it darts back into the woods, silent as a ghost. Better for wildlife to fear humans, than to pay for their curiosity down the road.

“See, nothing but a—” Eddie turns his head back around, but Richie isn’t there anymore. Instead of warm skin, his hand is wrapped around the smooth branch of a birch. He lets go abruptly, and the tree swings back and forth, settling.

Dumbfounded, Eddie’s heart races.

“What the hell.” He pushes past the birch, hands shaking as he looks all over for Richie.

The trees are different. Birches instead of conifers, their silvery-white bark glowing in the beam from his headlamp. The ground even feels different. It’s spongier. Not wet, just yielding, like he’s walking over decomposing peat.

His knees grow weak as panic takes over, eyes blurring until the birch trees start looking like boney fingers protruding from the earth. His feet ache, and he shivers in the freezing cold. Snow drifts past his eyes, landing on his cheeks, burning him like acid. 

A thing steps from the peaty undergrowth, stumbling towards him with the rolling-in-its-joints stride of a predator.

It resembles a buck at first glance, though it’s much much bigger, towering far over Eddie. The pelt reflects light; wet, glossy and red. Red because it doesn’t actually have skin, or a pelt. The creature is viscera held together by sinew; the sight alone is enough to nauseate. He can see its ribs, creamy white and stark, and the meaty bunch of muscles, fat yellowed with age. Drool drops from its maw, splashing onto the forest duff. The antlers on its head have never been shed. Years upon years, they’ve grown on top of one another, bases emerging from the tip of the last. If Eddie bothered, he might count more than a hundred sets.

Glowing yellow eyes cut through the dark.

Eddie doesn’t stick around. He turns on his heel and runs.

Letting out an inhuman roar, the thing chases him. It’s fast as a deer, but not nearly as agile, crashing through the forest, trees splintering in the wake of its swinging head.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” Eddie pants, arms and legs pumping. He jumps over fallen trees, ducking under low hanging branches. And still the creature nips at his heels. He thinks if it really wanted to, it could have him in one lunge. It’s playing with him. Like a cat does with a mouse before swallowing it whole.

Eddie trips, arms windmilling, but there’s nothing for him to grab onto. He lands hard on his shoulder, protecting the bow as he goes skidding across the slick leaves. His head lamp flickers, but doesn’t go out. He doesn’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse. If he’s going to die by this thing’s teeth, he doesn’t want to see the end coming. The stench of decomposition fills his nostrils, sickly sweet. The creature snarls, sharp teeth layered in a mouth that’s more like a cavern. Eddie sobs, a desperate noise. He should be screaming, but he can’t find the oxygen. 

The thing limps in its advancement, rotting from the inside out. His stomach turns as it huffs breaths that stink of fresh sewage into his face. Eddie kicks out, and his feet sink deep into putrefaction. Eddie retches at the sensation of slithering slime soaking into his pants.

“You fucking nasty-ass bitch!” Eddie screeches, thrusting out with the bow. The jutting cable guard jams into one yellow eye. Eddie yanks it out with a disgusting squelch, and the rod comes back coated in gore.

It howls like the devil, rearing up on powerful hind legs, kicking as it writhes in agony. Eddie takes the opportunity to scramble out from under it, staggering to his feet. Its eye socket is a mess of weeping pus.

Eddie shifts, intending to take off into the woods while it’s distracted, but instead he stumbles to a stop, fighting against the panic coursing through his veins. The creature has turned to the side, exposing its flank.

_ Vulnerable, _ he thinks.

_ Broadside,  _ someone else thinks _. Through the lungs. _

Eddie isn’t shaking anymore. He’s breathing normally. He’s not scared, he’s not even angry. All he feels is steady quiet.

Eddie pulls a silver arrow from the quiver. The creature shrieks, throwing its head against the canopy, sending twigs and catkins raining down upon them.

He places the arrow onto the rest, steady, steady. There’s a gentle hand on his elbow, guiding his arm up and the bow with it. A tug on his sleeve, and he draws the arrow back, muscles straining as he holds all that poundage in the crease of his two fingers. Hands press into his shoulders and he relaxes, the strain fading to muscle memory that isn’t his own. The tips of his fingers anchor at his jaw, and the end of his nose touches the bow string as his thumb notches into the raised tendon in his neck.

Light pressure against his temple, and he tilts his head just so, looking through the peep sight. He aligns his eye with the undulating horror loping towards that little metal notch in the front sight. Eddie stops breathing.

His fingers slip off the string. A snap like a whip, and the arrow flies straight and true. Flesh parts like a hot knife through butter, spattering blood and insides over the vegetation. The arrow keeps going until it splits a narrow pine down the middle.

“Eddie!” A scream echoes through the forest.

The creature is gone, like it was never there to begin with. No blood, no decomposition, no nothing. Eddie finds himself disoriented in the middle of a conifer forest. There’s not a birch in sight, no catkins, just pine needles and gravel. The earth is so dense beneath his feet, he could fall to his knees and kiss it.

“Eddie, where are you!” Richie’s voice echoes through the trees.

He’s bleeding, Eddie realizes distantly. He skinned the tips of his index and middle fingers. It’s proof, more than anything else, that he fought a nightmare and killed it.

Blood drips from his shaking hand as he shuffles over to the split conifer, blackened like it was hit by a lightning strike. The once silver arrow is bathed from tip to fletch in pine pitch, wedged halfway through the tree. Eddie laughs, shaking his head. Talk about symbolism. A black arrow.

Eddie reaches up, high on his tiptoes, and snaps off the head. The fiberglass shaft crumples to pieces, but the arrow head gleams like obsidian glass.

“Eddie!”

With one last look at the tree, he turns and walks back through the trees, following the sound of Richie’s voice. There, in the distance, a glimmer of light. He finds himself jogging, a beaming smile tugging on the corners of his lips, until he breaks open onto a clearing, and there Richie is, sitting on the hood of the car, head between his knees.

“Richie,” Eddie murmurs, relief and burning love waging war in his heart.

Richie looks up at him, fear and worry melting into pure, naked relief. He stumbles down from the hood, chest heaving. A near-sighted man could see that he’s been crying. His face is red, eyes puffy, and he’s the best damn thing Eddie’s ever seen.

“Holy fuck, oh shit, where the fuck were you?” Richie starts. “I was so worried, you don’t even know—”

Eddie races up to Richie and pulls him into a tight embrace, cutting him off prematurely. Locking his arms over Richie’s shoulders, he sticks his nose into his sweaty hair, smelling salt and pine needles.

“I got it.” His breath ghosts over Richie’s ear, making him shudder.

“You got it?” Richie asks, grabbing big fistfulls of Eddie’s sweater, trying to bring him closer.

“My token. I have it.” Eddie opens his hand and holds that sharp arrowhead up to the moonlight. Unbidden, tears drop from his eyes, one by one. “My memories. My dad. I got him back.”

**Author's Note:**

> I live off reader's comments, dried mango, and not much else, so if you're inclined, comments are greatly appreciated!


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